


Nothing But Purple Inside

by Chyme



Category: Ben 10 Series
Genre: Case Fic, Cousins, Established Relationship, Familial bonding, Family Issues, Interspecies Romance, M/M, Maybe a few brief insights into Anodite culture, Post-Canon, Post-Omniverse, Undercover Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-09 14:15:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 38,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7804969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chyme/pseuds/Chyme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>‘Thanks,’ he said bluntly, deciding that enough was enough. ‘But I don’t need your approval to do this.’</em><br/> <br/>Ben goes on an undercover mission, Rook frets, and Cousin Sunny can't seem to shut up about her new boyfriend. All of this, naturally, is a recipe for disaster.</p><p>[In other words, a typical, cliche Ben-discovers-his-Anodite-heritage-is-not-reserved-solely-for-Gwen-story. With a splash of romance. Okay, maybe several splashes...]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wayward Cousin...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told someone on FF.net that I was doing this. Well, here it is!

 

Light burst through the dark in patterns similar to the long trails of white and yellow that would explode out from Earthen streetlights, the ones that were fated to bloom into stretched smudges from looking out of a traveling car window. Only the light source, this time, was nothing so mechanical. No, these lights had been spat out from the stars themselves, in balls and blobs of grandeur that had lost their spark and stretched out over the distance a young Anodite had presently traveled.

Said Anodite now laughed, twisting and running her hands through the optical illusion her speed had made, a smile springing to her lips at the thought of her fingers diving into the cosmos and dividing its light with the lines of her flesh; or the mana-spun form of it anyway. She slowed and made an effort to enjoy the streaks of the stretched-out stars for a few more lingering seconds, before her hair erupted like a firework behind her and she came to a stop. The ends then flared out, quicker than any sword, to score the underside of a small cruiser that had been ferrying itself through deep space, and unbidden, her grin widened into a smirk.

Bingo. She was right on time.

She raised her hands, pink blasts automatically spaying out like ammo from a machine gun to successfully cut through the hull of the cruiser and she ‘oooh’ed to see the angry red spill of fire and bursts of hot gas in its wake.

‘Sorry, small stuff,’ she said finally as she recovered from her awe. Her shoulder raised in a flippant half-shrug as she airlifted the driver out of the wreckage, their form enclosed in a small orb of pink. ‘Should have brought some breathing apparatus with you.’

The girl, some weird furry creature that she had never seen before, glared at her, still crouched over as she fought to keep her lungs collapsing from the brief dip in deep space. Her clothes were blackened, burnt from the hot push of the explosion, and her left arm clutched feebly at her right, the metal cuffs on the forelimb looking as though it wouldn’t take much more heat to shatter them down into a liquid splash of silver.

The Anodite rolled her eyes. ‘Oh come on! It was for less than a second, I swear! You can’t be dying from that already.’ She hesitated, then titled her head to the side. ‘Jeeze, what are you, a James Cameron guppy? I swear Earthlings would eat you up.’ Then she shrugged again, a brief line of concentration appearing in her brow. ‘Lame. You’re probably a hick like them if I haven’t seen another of your kind before; I’ve been to all the major haunts and I’ve never stumbled upon such a Navi-lookalike before. And since I don’t want you coughing hairballs all over my sweet new energy source...’

She clapped her hands and with a brief swirl of light the orb spread and spun out like a miniature galaxy, an echo of the Milky Way still present in the way the trail of its limbs draped out against the dark and fell into disintegrating specks of light. The creature had time for one final glare, before she and the light, suddenly blinked out of sight.

Sunny grinned. ‘Take that perfect princess Gwen. Who needs some dusty magic words when you have mana the way I do.’

She giggled and dove down towards the wreckage. ‘Now let’s take a lookie here...’

 

\--------------------------

 

Rook was bristling, furious, and Ben couldn’t blame him. Shar wasn’t dead, but her vital signs still flickered alarmingly across the screen, all the sharp points and dips in the quick flicks of their lines playing twister with each other as though to spite him. And down below, under a tangled trail of wires and the clear stem of an IV line, her right side was wedged tightly under a thick layer of white. It rose up like the fine wrapping of a branch covered in spider silk, the bandages soaring up to cut across her chest and rest on her shoulder with a weight that looked far from small.

But yet none of that seemed to stop Shar from shifting, making a face, and then croaking out from under her furrowed brow a simple, ‘ow.’

Her brother was by her side instantly, his hand nervously folding over the left one that had been left hanging over the sheets like it was unaccounted for, free from both the trap of wires and linen that bound her right.

‘Please Shar, do not try moving.’

She gave him an annoyed look. ‘I did not. I was simply speaking; you are aware of the phenomena, are you not?’

Rook sighed, though he managed a small smile at the petulant tone in her voice all the same. ‘You sound like Rayona,’ he muttered.

‘Good,’ his sister said firmly. ‘At least I am emulating someone with actual sense.’

Rook smiled and cast a sad look at her bandaged side, his eyes slowly narrowing as they took in the small twists and tucks that bound the linen into the firm lines that smoothed over her body like tiny roads lined up side to side. It left very little to the imagination but Ben knew what it was that had really caught his partner’s eye; months of weaving his own fingers through blood-matted fur and scraped claws had shown him all the angles bandages and even plasters took on when they were wedged against the bulk of fur, however short-haired it might have been. And none of these same bumps were present now on Shar’s frame. No, not a tuff of blue or comforting white could peek through and make her look Revonnahgandian. Instead that side of Shar looked smaller, weak and vulnerable in the way Kundo’s bald head sometimes did when it caught the light.

Well. Perhaps that was an unfair comparison. He couldn’t really see Shar’s skin and compare it to the flesh of a plucked chicken with the bandages in the way. Besides, she still had the fur on her face, and even if she hadn’t, Ben was willing to bet that she’d be lot easier on the eyes than Mr Tradition and his slanty eyes.

‘Hey,’ he said, ‘Not to worry; the doctors say it will grow back, right?’ He flushed and made a quick gesture to her bandages, suddenly painfully aware that he wasn’t sure if it was improper or immodest to refer to her lack of fur like that; perhaps it had the stigma similar to nakedness or something, he didn’t know. Though Rook had never seemed  bothered by Kundo’s baldness - except  that Rook was weird, even for a Revonnahgander, and Shar was a _girl_ and the rules always seemed to be different for them, no matter the species.

But Shar didn’t huff or look at Ben like he was a tiny insect she wanted to squash with both her hands the way Gwen might have done; no, she simply peeked down at the part of her Ben had indicated and sighed sadly.

‘Yes, but it will take a while. Not because our fur grows slowly, but because the bandages must first come off. And I do not know when _that_ will be.’

‘Please be patient,’ Rook instructed her, reaching out to flatten a palm against her head; it slid over her hair like the glide of a familiar brush, practised and smooth. ‘I know it is hard and you have never been one who likes to wait. But this time, haste will do nothing but harm.’

‘Thankfully I am not Ben,’ she muttered, before her eyes widened at Ben’s indignant gasp and she hurriedly said, ‘no, I meant our younger brother! These drugs make my mind fuzzy and words hard to come by. Though...you do not seem to be the most patient of people either.’

‘He is not,’ Rook reassured her firmly. ‘The very opposite in fact. Rest now; I will make sure the delinquent responsible for your pain will face justice for what she has done.’

Ben shifted uncomfortably. After all, it was because of his family that a member of Rook’s was in the hospital.

But Rook was already moving, giving his sister’s hand one final press before he let it go and Ben watched as if flopped down to carve out more wrinkles into the sheets with its weight.

‘Come Ben. We must plan how to deal accordingly with your other, much more unpleasant cousin.’

Yes, thought Ben, let’s.

 

\--------------------------

 

Far below the main control room, Ben hunted through a set of long-lost files, frowning heavily at the untidy hand-writing of a past Plumber. Rook meanwhile, was at his side, busy slamming his fingers against a holo-projector with such agitated force that the machine let out a protesting beep, one that sharply rose into a squeal that resembled the onset of a fire-alarm. Ben winced, before glancing over to see the neat lines of the grid it portrayed rippling out into staticky waves and failing to criss-cross each other. Those blurred lines were home to a map, stars and dotted lines of pre-planned travel routes hashed out through chucky squares and they quickly recovered, straightening out again into inky blue blocks, before distorting as Rook’s finger landed against the screen once more.

‘There,’ he said, in a very cool, clipped tone, with no hint of a snarl beneath his breath. Which didn’t exactly do anything to ease Ben’s worry. ‘That is where my sister was...’ he paused, obviously fighting back the words he wanted to use. ‘..accosted.’

Ben sighed and closed the file. ‘It’s alright, you can say it,’ he said, trying not to sound as tired as he felt. ‘She was attacked. Sunny’s crossed a line and we’re going to find her and throw the book at her.’

‘I would rather throw her into a solid object, a cell preferably, than waste a perfectly innocent book,’ Rook said coldly.

Ben’s lips quirked. ‘We can do that too, if you like.’ He groaned and reached for another file, stretching to rid himself of a crink in his neck. ‘God, these things must have been sitting down here forever. They’re all dusty. Whose job is it to put the info here into the Plumber’s database so that I shouldn’t have had to do this, anyway?’

‘For once, it is not Blukic and Driba,’ said Rook, no trace of hesitation in his tone. ‘It is considered good training for the academy students to transcribe and upload it onto the system. It teaches them the importance of cataloguing files.’

Ben shook his head. ‘Either way, this is all I can find on Anodites taking up interest in agriculture. They don’t seem particularly interested in crops, even the wonder-fruit that is Amber Ogia. Why Sunny would want a batch-load of the stuff is beyond me.’ Ben threw his hands up in disgust. ‘In fact, this last one goes on and on about the fish he and this one Anodite, some guy he called Waffallia – that’s gotta be a mistake of some kind – caught and how ‘Waffles’ kept cooing over the energy signature of it’s ‘flailing fins.’ Ben made a face. ‘Guy writes like a novelist. A bad one.’

‘Be that as it may, it does not change the fact that your cousin, an Anodite, felt such a pressing need for Amber Ogia that she was content to destroy Plumber property and risk my sister’s life.’

Ben hesitated. ‘To be fair, Sunny’s not the kind of girl who feels she _needs_ a compelling reason to do anything,’ he said slowly, watching the way Rook’s fist closed, bunches of ruffled-up fur littering his fingers in place of wrinkles. ‘Careless destruction in the name of fun seems to be her MO.’

‘Ah,’ said Rook, and Ben flinched as those teeth landed together in a ruthless clink. ‘So she takes after you then, instead of Gwen. At least personality-wise.’

Okay. That was clearly unfair. But Rook’s eyes were tight and yellow, looking nastily enough like Kundo’s for Ben to swallow down his retort and say surprisingly gently: ‘Sure. But at least I try to make sure people are out of the way before I start wrecking stuff.’

Rook sighed and threw his head back, pressing his fingers against the closed folds of his eyes.

‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘I am not focusing on the things I should and I tend to get...laser-focused? Or develop ‘hole vision’ when my family is involved.’

Ben smiled and reached over to rub a taunt shoulder that was busy slumping behind the blue filter of light from the holo-projector’s. It threw out a dark shape like a shadow over Rook’s form, before Ben’s fingers danced through the hovering screen to chase out the dotted lines of trade routes and replace them with the blur of static. He managed to ignore the shudder of pixels surrounding his wrist as he methodically kneaded the muscle below and they both paused there for a moment, the two of them leaning over a small desk that was surrounded by the green flare of monitor boards from the Plumber’s lesser-used storage units.

They were in a tucked-away location, a tiny annex with the hiss of wires crackling loudly overhead as though to confirm how alone they were. Unfortunately that also meant that this place was subject to sudden surges of electricity, causing the lights to flicker into a low hue without warning and the shadows to swoop in and soar out like claws from the corners they had originally been forced into.

Rook sighed again as another such flicker took place, before rolling his shoulder more firmly into Ben’s grasp. It was the best he could do with the hard press of Proto-armour between them, because it distanced his nerves from Ben’s fingers, letting them register only as light sweeps of pressure. Or at least, that’s what it always felt like when Ben was attempting to be as gentle as he now was. Unfortunately, tender caresses didn’t really work in work hours, not when Ben directed his touch towards the parts of his anatomy that weren’t his face or hands.

‘No sweat,’ said Ben. ‘I get it.’ Then he laughed, sharp and bright and obviously forced. ‘And congratulations; you actually got an expression right for once. It is laser-focused. But not ‘hole vision.’ I think you were trying for ‘tunnel vision’ there. Still, one out of two ain’t bad.’

Rook rolled his eyes. ‘Oh yes, that is certainly an achievement to be proud of.’

Ben softened. ‘Okay, I’m not saying anything more because you have the right to be grumpy, but...how exactly are we planning to track Sunny down? We know where she’s been, but not where she’ll go. And Gwen is busy with some dissertation that’s due in a few hours, so we can’t get help from that quarter. Well, not without her flunking.’

Rook let out a tight, taunt hiss of breath, his frustration rising.

Then Ben smirked. ‘Then again, I am still Sunny’s family. Enough to know that we can’t really appeal to her better nature. The party animal inside her, however...’

 


	2. ...coming to a Party Near You!

 

There was a buzz in the air, Sunny could feel it. It was in the mana, pulsing and flickering through the minds of people that were peering over at their phones and communicators. Some used fingers, others had fins, and Sunny could even see a few tentacles weaving their way across small keypads, while the telepaths among them simply stared at the screen and thought really hard, lips twitching as text automatically scrolled past their faces. Either way, Sunny found herself huffing and turned back to the bartender.

‘Get me, like, an Appoplexian appetizer,’ she said. ‘The rest of this room’s so quiet and boring with everyone all plugged in, that I need _something_ exciting to happen, even if it’s just to my taste-buds.’ She laughed and pressed a finger against the neon light-strip that ran round the kidney-shaped curve of the bar, causing it to flare a bright purple for a moment. ‘Of course, I could get a regular light show going on here...anyone up for a little disco?’

She clapped her hands and suddenly there was a revolving ball of light spinning far above her head, throwing flecks of silvery light across the room. Occasionally they would develop a pink hue and she had to grit her teeth a little with the effort of forcing them back into a richer shade of white.

A few aliens with facial muscles immediately frowned at her, and one Chimera Sui Generis waved a few tendrils of his beard at her threateningly – enough of a gesture to get the Bartender, a Nemuina, involved.

‘Quit it, girlie,’ he snorted at her, abruptly zooming into her view. She made a face as some of the dust spraying from his wings landed on the dish of breaded meats he shoved into her hands. ‘Think of the screen flare. Annoying as fuck.’

Sunny paused, a little bewildered by the Earthian curse. ‘I thought this place was supposed to be _fun,_ ’ she stressed, her tone developing into a sulky whine. ‘Not _lame_.’

‘You want fun, sweetheart? Try Ben Ten’s party.’

She perked up the last word. ‘Wait, what party? Ben’s not quite as much a stick in the mud as Gwen, but...’

The bartender rolled his eyes and then slowly, as if he were speaking to a small child, he said: ‘the party that’s swamping all the social media feeds? He’s throwing some wild shindig out on some abandoned space-station in the Dark Delta quadrant. He’s a goody-goody but from the photos and short video clips he’s put up, it looks kinda funky. All swamped up with ice statues holding alcohol and lava pits that somehow aren’t melting the floor.’

Sunny blinked. ‘Lava pits.’

‘Yeah, that’s even some robot-bashing game on one of the lower decks. Looks sweet.’

Slowly, Sunny’s face broke out into a wild grin. ‘I’m there. Totally.’

 

\--------------------------

 

‘Thank you, Jury Rigg,’ sighed Ben, wiping the sweat from his brow. He leapt down from the clanking metallic monstrosity he had pushed together not minutes before, comprised of pipes and spare metal plating and looking very much like a drone built from a garbage heap. It was a far cry from the sleek Dimension Twelve robots Sunny had favoured smashing the last time she was on Earth, but it would have to do. He glanced up at the bland shiny white patch that shone out from the surrounding rust on its main body as the final resting place of a fridge door, and squashed down the urge to find a marker and scrawl a smiley face over it.

‘Very impressive,’ Rook noted from the corner, though he couldn’t help but glance a little sourly over at one machine that looked a little too much like a balloon animal. He watched with suspicion as its sleek silver lines extended into bulbous curves; Ben had found some sort of gelatinous foil for that one. ‘But the lava pits were a bit much, I fear.’

‘You don’t have to go in them,’ Ben said. ‘Just hang out by those alcohol towers I built with Big Chill. All the way on the top floors.’ He sighed. ‘Urgh, this took hours. It had better work.’

 Rook was quiet for a moment. Then, looking down at the ground, he said a very quiet and muted ‘thank you.’

Ben sighed. ‘Don’t thank me, yet,’ he warned. ‘There’s still time for it to go horribly wrong.’ He paused to tilt his head to the side, a sly look twinkling in his eyes. ‘And you’re gonna have to loosen up. Think you can lose the stiff Plumber cadet thing you’ve got going on for a few hours? You’ll stick out like a sore thumb if you don’t.’

Rook smirked, though there was no real heart in it. ‘I know the Electric Slide. And I am familiar with the boogie-woogie genre. I even,’ he declared, now with a definite hint of pride in his voice, ‘know how to waltz.’ He smiled at Ben, and though the line of his mouth looked a little stiff, the hand he extended out to his partner still slid out into the air with all its customary grace intact. ‘Care for me to show you?’

Ben laughed and backed away, out towards the wide, grey space of the wall. ‘Nah. Ben Ten does not dance. At least not well. I’ve got way too many other more important things to do, like saving the entire universe.’ He paused, locked in thought briefly as Rook’s smile widened and he barely noticed as his partner stepped forward, his shadow mingling with his own. ‘When did you learn anyway? I thought you said you didn’t know how to- _whoa!_ ’

Hands snatched from his sides and lifted into warmer, blue ones, Ben found himself gently spun round, his view shifting from robot to robot as Rook’s smiling face and broad chest imposed themselves over the background of each of them.

‘Internet,’ Rook said, a great proud flourish to his voice.

Ben glared at him, though he could feel his lips twitching. ‘Dip me and I’ll kill you.’

Rook’s eyebrows rose. ‘Oh dear. We cannot be having that. I will miss all the fun.’ He pulled Ben round in casual looping glide, smiling a little as Ben let out a helpless laugh and tripped over his own feet.

‘This is weird, man. I haven’t done this since I was the ring-bearer at a wedding, when I was like _ten_.’

Rook hummed and pulled him in close, smiling as Ben wrapped his arms round him in a tight hug in return.

‘I love you and everything,’ said his human partner, his voice coming out falsely jovial and thick, ‘but please don’t try to waltz at this party I’m throwing. Especially not with me. It’ll ruin whatever street cred we have left. And look completely lame.’

‘The only thing lame will be your two right fe-’

‘Left,’ Ben corrected absently, not even pausing to be disturbed by the fact that he could tell which figure of speech Rook had been attempting to deliver.

‘Left feet,’ Rook continued, as though he hadn’t heard and Ben was forced to lean forward and disguise his smile in the shadow of Rook’s armour. ‘But not to worry. I will reserve all my dancing for the weird jerking movements customary of the ‘grinding’ teenagers you find on Earth.’

Ben made a face. ‘Do me a favour. Don’t try to grind with anyone at the party. Don’t even mention that word.’

‘Not to worry,’ Rook assured him. ‘I will reserve all grinding for the bedroom.’ And with that, he absently dropped Ben’s hands and strode out of the room, leaving Ben to gape after him with amazement.  Sometimes even _he_ forgot what a smart mouth the guy had on him.

 

\--------------------------

 

The plan was...well. It was mainly, ‘throw a huge party and hope Sunny shows up.’ Though Rook could admit that it was impressive, the amount of work Ben had put into the preparation, even if _he_ had been the one forced to hold the camera steady for the live-stream while Ben hit his watch again and again and transformed the interior of the space-station into a glorified...well, _atrocity_.

Rook wrinkled his nose and glared at the haphazardous clash of green vines against tables spun out of ice. They sparkled and gleamed beneath the stems, slight cracks sprinkled through their surface as the partygoers smashed fists against their surface and timed each other to see who could chug the most beer. A Pyronite to his right was casually pressing his fist against the centre of a nearby table, causing the ice directly beneath to collapse into a gushing swirl, while the outer rim carved itself into the resemblance of a wonky caldron. And a Piscciss Volann next to him let out a snorting giggle and ducked his head into the bubbling roll of hissing waves, apparently unperturbed by the heat.

‘Hey,’ said a small Gourmand by his bent knee, clambering up to the rim with his stubby claws. ‘Great idea. We could go bobbing for apples, or something.’ He hesitated, saliva collecting in the corner of his mouth as he began to drool. ‘Mmmm...apples...’

‘Yeah,’ said the Pyronite, ‘or we could just do this.’ He kicked the Picciss Volann (very rudely, thought Rook) in the butt, laughing as the guy’s legs flailed upright in panic before the entirety of the table crashed and rolled under the sudden weight, slithering down into shards of misshapen ice. Rook took one look at the mess and stepped back, away from the spread of growing puddles, all of him tense and alert. He felt the need to step forward, to try and placate or restrain them somehow, but...

Ben’s hand landed on his arm. ‘Easy there,’ said the human, his grin cocky, even if it didn’t reach all the way up to his eyes. ‘You’re playing the part of an irresponsible teenager for now. You can bust heads together later. Besides, I don’t think they’re breaking any laws.’

The Gormand snorted, stumbling round in a drunken daze before his teeth latched onto the poor party-goer’s tail.

‘Yet,’ Ben added doubtfully, wincing as the resulting shriek tore through the air. 

Rook narrowed his eyes. ‘The night, as you would say, is still young.’

Ben shook his head in bemusement. ‘I just wish I had an alien who could track mana down. Anodites are pretty good at wrapping themselves up in skin. Sunny could look like anything she wants, be anywhere she-’

There was a loud bang, straight from under their feet where the robot would kept. And, beneath the blast the sound of a very faint ‘wheeeee.’

Ben twitched. ‘Forget I said anything.’

Rook tilted his head to the side. ‘Whee?’ he asked quizzically.

But Ben had already taken off running, ducking round the rhythmic sway of couples to push out his own pathway through the thrones of aliens much bigger than himself. Rook followed, heart in his throat as a drunken Highbreed flailed for balance, his large arm brushing by the space Ben’s brown head had been moments before – but Ben was quick and nimble, sliding out of the way with a well-timed duck. Rook tried to focus on his own path, but it was hard; his eyes kept being drawn back to the flicker of white on the wrist Ben held up before him, the flash of skin and sleeve alongside it appearing dark and distorted within the huddled flare of shadows that spilled across both their bodies. It reminded him of the way the bandages had swamped Shar’s form, the creases in the sheets digging out shadows that made her shape seem darker than it should.

And as they ran, her face sprung up in his mind more firmly, free from the crash of lights this wretched place threw out, her expression small and shuttered as she rested against the pristine white of her pillow. Something swirled in his gut at that, tight and angry, and lowering his head, it became a lot easier to focus. He charged through the masses, his strides easily beginning to outpace Ben’s, and seeing an opportunity, he leapt up, hands clutching against one of the overhanging pipes as his feet lodged themselves against the head of a Tetramand below. And then  he launched himself off the hard skull to reach the elevator barely a moment later, his Revonnahgander legs almost effortlessly cutting through the space in a way Ben couldn’t hope to mirror. He barely paused to breathe before he bypassed it entirely, leaping down the stairs to its side – the light panel overhead had been flashing, marking it as in use, and suddenly those precious seconds spent waiting for the door to open were too long to live through, not when he could probably cover the necessary distance in less.

He ignored the yelled out ‘hey!’ as Ben’s trainers pounded against the tiles behind him. Too slow, especially now when Rook’s legs were longer, more resilient, better able to survive a jump, which is just what he did, plopping himself over the railing and dropping a good nine metres below to land in a sensible crouch against the side of a lower flight of stairs.

‘Oi, stop acting like me! You’re picking up all the wrong habits!’ Ben’s complaint floated down from above, but Rook ignored it, sprinting through doorways and out into the large circular room where Ben’s collection of robots lay. And continued to lie, sparking and shuddering in parody of a living being’s death throngs.

‘Lame,’ said a dark haired girl, launching a pink bubble at a small brown robot Jury Rigg had designed to clamber round on all fours like a misguided dog. The bubble floated casually forward, before it picked up speed and proceeded to tear through the sinewy gleam of metallic muscle like a saw, ripping apart the wires inside and trailing sparks in a shower of blue.  She pouted at a nearby Tetramand, who was busy nursing his elbow with a glare. ‘Seriously, these guys gave you trouble? Urgh, my boyfriend would have taken done these chumps in with a single punch by now. Don’t any of you know how to actually have fun?’

‘Does that ‘fun’ including harming innocent people?’ Rook asked coldly, stalking forward, his proto-tool extended.

She blinked at him and it was truly disturbing to see how much she resembled Gwen, the same bone structure rolling beneath the skin to open up her forehead to his view. The only real difference was the hair that fell out from around her scalp like a splatter of dark paint.

‘Hey,’ she said, breaking into a grin that was all Ben, so much so that it hurt to see. ‘You’re the second cat-person I’ve seen this week. Maybe you’re not from the boonies, after all.’

‘Oh no, your impression was quite correct,’ said Rook, his voice so taunt with fury, that it sounded robotic even to his own ears. ‘We are not a widely-known species. But thank you for confirming that it was indeed you who put my sister in the hospital.’

And with that he charged. Sunny barely had time to spit out a laugh, before it was choked off by the swing of his proto-tool, the bright orange blade extending to cause a ripple against the small pink shield she hastily threw up. In normal circumstances perhaps it would have held up against the strain. But Rook was running on adrenaline and his feet had already left the floor to bring all his weight to bear down against the laser knife, the shield trembling, before it shook itself out into cracks, and Sunny swore as it fell down around her like the shards of a broken mirror.

She quickly forced her own feet to leave the floor as she swooped upwards in a smooth glide. But even without any levitation abilities, Rook followed her, his strong Revonnahgander legs failing to let him down as he soared up and dealt her a hefty blow to the chin, right before she could clamber to a truly unattainable height. She smashed against the floor with a small thud, a pitiful ‘omph’ escaping her mouth, but Rook had no inclination to feel sorry for her; he was already reaching down into his pocket for the bracelet Ben had passed to him hours ago. It was a pretty thing, small red markings like gemstones set into its delicate sides and accented by crests of black running over its silvery edges, some of which divided into dashes and ran in short lines, with each end forking out like a snake’s tongue.

Before he had the chance to reach down and clamp it over her wrist though, her eyes flared open into burning pits of white. She looked at him and it was like the stars themselves were glaring into his soul; but then her human skin fell off with a sleek shudder like a costume, and the dark purple of her Anodite body was suddenly laid bare before him. It was the first time he had seen one unwrapped from clothes; perhaps she possessed the lack of modesty that he heard was all the rage for energy beings. To his credit, he barely faltered for a second; she was no Rayona, or even Isolceles, and well, Ben’s form fell under a different spectrum in regard to his interests, one that couldn’t be measured against a female form with any sort of practical judgement—but then light broke in and wrapped around his wrists, squeezing over the thick muscles of his legs as he was shoved down onto the floor, the coils of her hair pressing in like a cunning python.

He grunted, strained but her hair possessed a strength that was beyond that of mere muscles and she grinned down at him without any real spite. ‘Hey handsome,’ she said, something soft and girlish in the set of her voice and despite the deeper resonance that her Anodite form gave it, it still quivered with the sort of excitement Rook dimly remembered hearing from his days on Revonnah, surrounded by his unwanted fan-club. ‘You know, even with the fur, you’re kinda pretty. And those orange eyes...mmm, they’re like stars.’

‘Eeeeew, grosssss,’ came a long hiss. And then Ghostfreak charged overhead, long wafting trails of smoke issuing from his arms as he raked his claws against the long glow of his cousin’s hair. She screamed in disgust, her hair crawling away from his touch, and by extension, Rook’s limbs, as she seized it back and inspected the long curves of it for damage. ‘Hey, watch it! I’m waaay too old for grey roots. How is my boyfriend supposed to love me if you do something so horrible as RUINING. MY. HAIR?!?’

She emphasised these last three word by sending out large blasts of manner, the discs weaving and dipping into unusual trajectories, ones impossible to manage without some level of psychic control. They raced up and then sideways, their speed increasing as Ben barely made himself intangible for two of them, losing concentration as the third one suddenly flared and exploded into a bright orb of light to burn merrily like a Jack’o lantern. He growled, claws scoring the floor he dived towards, forcing himself to roll _through_ the floor as though he was doing nothing more than performing a mere dodging maneuver before he reappeared metres away, arching up from the tiles behind Sunny in a quick shot of pale grey. He quickly spread out behind her like an immobile sheet, his claws pushing into her back and phasing into her body, though it seemed to take more time then it would with a body formed with actual flesh.

Ben snorted at the effort, and his arms, before they disappeared, Rook noted with concern, were still leaking smoke. It may not have been true light leaking from the Rapunzel-like weave of Sunny’s hair, not with the influx of mana spilling from its ends, but it was still bright enough to hurt an Ectonurite.

‘Hey cuzzz, I hate to preach, but given the way your hair keeps sssplitting into ssstreamersss, I think you ssshould be worrying more about your actual ssssplit endss.’ Ben let out a cackle at this and dived forward, streaking though all the mana Sunny sent towards him and easily passing through her shields like the ghost that he was.

‘I doubt very much that an Anodite can actually get grey hair,’ muttered Rook, gingerly lifting himself to his feet. ‘Since their hair, whilst in their true form, is comprised of mana and not actual cells, which are subject to decay in the way living energy is not.’

But nobody was listening to him. Sunny was screaming and Ben was phasing into her, her eyes flickering from white to green then back again, though the intense shine in her pupil-less eyes never changed.

‘Ew, ew, ew, gross, gross, gross!’ Sunny was chanting. ‘Only my boyfriend’s allowed inside me! You’re all wrong...and your...energy... _dead_...!’

Her voice broke on this last word and Ben took advantage of the pause following it.

‘Now Rook!’ he hissed, out of a mouth that buckled unwillingly under the contortion he forced it under, eyes shining as brightly as the green they always seemed to glow as, no matter which alien shape he struggled to escape into.

Rook needed no telling twice. He clutched the bracelet and leapt once again, even as Ben struggled to push Sunny’s flailing body towards the ground. It was hard; Rook could hear the various grunts and curses, as well as a strange sizzling taking place like the fuzzy sound of static on a TV that had lost its signal. There may not have been actual light churning inside the body Ben was currently nestled inside, but then Anodite bodies were much simpler without the mass of chemical reactions that took place within flesh-and-blood organs, and perhaps that could bring its own set of complications.

Rook growled and thrust the bracelet over Sunny’s wrist with a casual snap of metal meeting mass; as soon as it came in contact with her arm, Sunny let out a yell, rapidly flickering between flesh and purple-skinned energy. And Ben abruptly fell out of her as though he had been expelled, landing with a flash of green light, back into his human form. After a few seconds, Sunny also fell, rolling with a bump over Ben's back before she gathered her knees up to her chest and gasped, all of her now as thoroughly human as he was.

‘What did you...that was wild, man! Urgh...unpleasant afterburn. What kinda drug was that!’

Ben raised an eyebrow, clambering to his feet with a wince. ‘No drug,’ he said sternly, ‘just a recycled gift from Grandpa Max. You look up to Grandma Verdona, right? Well, she once wore that bracelet on her wrist, although I had to tune it up with some help from Grey Matter to get it working again.’

‘It will severely limit your powers,’ Rook stated, re-hoisting his proto-tool onto his shoulders. ‘The most you should be able to manage is some rudimentary telepathy.’

Sunny stared up at them both, hugging her knees to her chest. She looked small and scared, pieces of her hair flattened and swept up by her sweat to be pasted against the side of her cheek.

‘Bummer,’ she managed, as Rook drew out the handcuffs from his utility belt.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What a wild night, huh?
> 
> And yes, the bracelet is indeed that trinket from the ‘Moonstruck’ episode in Ultimate Alien.


	3. Hatching a Magnificant Scheme

 

‘There’s a problem,’ Max said grimly. He leaned forward, resting his hands against a pale green control panel lodged into the wall, the screen above etched out like chalk with the way it’s pixels shone out, bright and fierce. It depicted Sunny resting on a stool behind an interrogation table, her legs moodily swinging back and forth beneath them both like a pendulum - the angle of the camera was from above and to Ben at least, it made her limbs look like pale sticks, tiny and delicate, like swabs of paint against an uncaring wall.

‘Of course there’s a problem,’ he said dryly. He peered closer at his Grandpa’s grim face, noting just how many wrinkles were perched within his brow. That was never a good sign. ‘What’s up, Grandpa?’

Max groaned. ‘Sunny’s in over her head. Her parents have been frantic because she’s taken up with another ‘bad influence.’

Ben cocked an eyebrow. ‘Let me guess. Another Antonio?’

‘Worse,’ Max said grimly. ‘Fistrick.’

Ben sputtered and Rook frowned in fascinated disgust. ‘I...’ he said, before frowning even harder and then shaking his head as he came to a conclusion. ‘No. I believe this is what Ben would call ‘gross.’

‘And she’s not even your family,’ Ben muttered. He gave Sunny’s small form an appraising glance. ‘Still. At least it’s not Michael Morningstar.’

‘She might be dead by now if it were,’ Rook pointed out. But his voice as he spoke was curiously flat, with not a tremor of the usual care in its inflection.

His sister is in the hospital, Ben reminded himself, he hasn’t got much room for caring about anything else.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but I don’t get why this is such a problem. I mean...it’s Fistrick. He’s dangerous, sure, but, well, it’s _Fistrick_.’

His Grandpa narrowed his eyes into mere dots. ‘Fistrick is a lot more than just mere muscle, Ben. You know this. He’s been quite influential in the smuggling trade and he’s usually bright enough to cover his tracks.’

‘Not that bright,’ Ben muttered, crossing his arms, ‘or we would never have caught him as much as we obviously have.’   

‘And each time he eventually ends up escaping,’ Rook pointed out wearily. ‘Manister Tennyson is right, Ben.’

Ben threw up his hands in the air. ‘C’mon almost every prisoner here has ended up escaping at some point! Plumber HQ is high-tech, sure, but secure we sure ain’t, what with the number of criminals coming and going. It’s like we’re one big revolving door.’ He paused at Max’s and Rook’s twin looks of consternation. ‘Well,’ he amended grudgingly. ‘Emperor Milleous' is always here. But that’s only because Attea inherited all the brains in the family. If she had been here instead of him, she would have escaped ages ago.’

Rook shuffled uncomfortably. ‘Can we please get back to the subject of your wayward cousin?’

Max cleared his throat. ‘The point is that Sunny’s obviously been drawn into Fiskrick’s business. She’s refusing to say much, but from what her parents have said, she’s spent all her spare time with him. And honestly, stealing Amber Ogia is more Fistrick’s MO than hers.’

‘It would make sense,’ Rook acknowledged with a slight tilt of his head. ‘Since he has done it before.’ His expression soured in remembrance.

‘Okay, but let’s not forget the last time a boyfriend was a ‘bad influence’ on her,’ Ben said, injecting as much scorn as he could into the two words he wrapped up with finger quotations. ‘And remember how that turned out? Sunny was ten times worse than whatever Antonio could muster up.’ 

‘So is Fistrick,’ Rook said firmly, ‘and while I was not there, I can well believe that Sunny was the primary perpetrator in the event you are referring too. They are probably more terrible together than apart.’

‘That’s where the problem comes in,’ Max said grimly. ‘Fistrick is up to something. He’s been smuggling over valuable crops and no one knows where he’s keeping the stash from his raids. The DA’s ready to throw the book at Sunny if she doesn’t cooperate, but she’s swearing blind that she would never betray her boyfriend. Says their love is strong enough to survive anything.’

‘ _Yeeeeah_ , but a few months in prison ought to change that,’ Ben said flippantly.

Max sighed. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of time. There’s a big shipment of some Xenteen wheat coming through this sector from Kinet in a few days time.’

Rook perked up, bringing his hands together in a quick clap of pleasure. ‘Oooh! I must confess, though I have seen a hob of it in person, the videos on the Extranet show it to be quite a striking type of cereal. It glows from time to time, discharge similar to static running over the nubs.’

Ben stuck out his tongue. ‘Ew. Please never say either ‘hobs’ or ‘nubs’ again in the same sentence. Sounds gross.’

Rook frowned. ‘Actually, it was two sentences,’ he said rather crossly. ‘I remember distinctly taking a breath between the two.’ His palms fell away from each other. ‘Besides, what words should I have used instead? They strongly resemble Earth corn hobs in appearance and the seeds attached look very much like nubs, rather than a ‘piece’ or a ‘part.’

‘Oh my God,’ said Ben bleakly. ‘Just when I think I’ve forgotten what it’s like to sit in English class, you open your mouth and it all comes racing back.’ 

Rook’s frown deepened, but just as his mouth fell open to speak, Max cleared his throat.

‘ _Anyway_ ,’ he stressed, ‘the point is that Xenteen is a primary ingredient for many intergalactic energy drinks out there. And some energy bars too. It’s quite popular among planetary trekkers for it’s revitalising properties. Unfortunately it can also double up as a rather toxic steroid in the wrong hands.’

Ben winced, picturing the bulge of Fistrick’s muscle. Just because the guy was a health nut, worse than Rook even, it didn’t mean he wouldn’t want to take advantage of the profit selling some high-demand steroids would offer. After all, it wasn’t like he was going to be injecting the stuff into his own veins.

‘Double ew,’ he said weakly.

Max shook his head. ‘At times like this, I wish you weren’t so friendly with Judge Domstol. He and his various associates in the High Court have taken a personal interest in this matter, stating that someone of ‘great importance’ has been affected somehow. They’re keeping their identity secret and are claiming that it’s a matter they can entrust only to you.’

Ben grinned, letting his next words roll out alongside an easy shrug. ‘What can I say? I’m a people-pleaser.’

‘This is serious, Ben. Because they seem to believe that as well.’ Max looked him straight in the eye. ‘They’re insisting that you be the one to accompany Sunny and get the information out of her. And they’re already drafted up a fake report from the Anodite home-world, insisting that you be held accountable for ‘sullying the energy inside one their own with the stillness of that which should not be.’ Max seemed to pronounce these words with a solemnity that was hard to recognise; perhaps because he was reciting a value he didn’t fully understand. Ben took a second to process this, remembering that his Grandpa had actually lived and had children with an alien who came from such values, and perhaps that was why he felt the need to stress the poetry of this ruling.

‘Ah, of course,’ said Rook softly, an air of realisation about his tone. ‘Ghostfreak does not possess mana. That must be a discomforting thing for any energy being to make contact with.’

Max shrugged. ‘The Anodites don’t really care to enforce such a ruling unless one of their own has been possessed for a number of days, rather than minutes. But it’s a source of enough contention to enforce it still.’

There was quiet for a moment. ‘No,’ said Rook, realisation still running strong and thick through his tone. ‘Magister!’

‘Oh yes, I’m afraid so,’ said Max grimly. ‘They want to throw Ben inside the prison with her, under false charges until this matter gets cleared up. They say that since Ben’s technically family, she’ll be more willing to open up, than if we had him parading around in an alien disguise.’

Ben didn’t even need to turn around to know what sort of expression his boyfriend would be making. He was probably choking on his own indignation.

‘No sweat,’ he said, keeping his eyes firmly ahead. And then, to top off his impression of absolute casualness, he leant all of his weight onto one elbow, propping himself up against a control panel to his right. ‘When do we start?’

 

\--------------------------

 

‘No, absolutely not!’

Ben sighed, inspecting the creases in the light purple jumpsuit that was compulsory wearing for the prison he was going to be living in. Orange was more Earth’s default colour for such things it would seem.

‘That’s the sixth time you’ve said that,’ he pointed out idly, fingers fiddling with a loose thread he had found trailing from a pale button on the chest. In all honesty, it wasn’t bad; plain, unadorned and made of a fabric that creased at the touch like his cargo pants, he spread it out across the bed a little more firmly as though he could iron out the folds.

But Rook still glared at the thing like it was made of dynamite, fuming. ‘And I will say it again! Do you not remember the last time you went undercover when Fistrick was involved?’

Ben groaned. ‘Yes, yes, how could I forget?’ He paused and flashed a sly look at Rook over his shoulder, eyes narrowing with a gleam and alighting on the tight line of his boyfriend’s mouth. ‘Aw, you’re all worried. But you don’t need to be. There’s a key difference between this and last time, don’t forget; Fistrick isn’t actually going to be in the prison. It’ll just be Sunny and me. Come on, I’m not completely rubbish at getting information out of people, you’ve seen me in action.’

‘Yes,’ Rook said grimly, ‘and I have also seen you in over your head.’

Ben snorted and turned away, now feeling a little cross himself. ‘The mission hasn’t even started yet. I’ll be fine. Both you and Grandpa worry too much.’

Rook sighed, and Ben heard him in step forward, boots making a dull thud as they pressed in against the concrete floor. And then Rook’s fingers were sliding over his shoulder, those large palms cupping the roll of bone beneath so he could turn Ben round more easily to face him. ‘Ben...’

Now would be a good time for a joke to lighten the situation, thought Ben. But for once, he didn’t really have any good ones. Not when Rook looked so serious about all this.

‘...You will be human...’

Ben stared back gormlessly for a second before shaking himself slightly.

‘Yes,’ he replied, with a suddenly aggressive bite to his voice. ‘I will. And you know what else I’ll be? Fine. Without _you_. As a _human_. You, know like I’ve been for the majority of my life.’

But Rook was shaking his head, a bitter twist to his expression. ‘Forgive me. I did not mean to imply that you were helpless’-

Yes, you did, thought Ben. You just forgot to let your politeness hold you back, for once. And if that wasn’t a true testament to Rook’s worry, then he didn’t know what was.

-‘I was merely attempting to give credence to the expression ‘you are only human,’ but I experienced a brief lapse in my memory.’

Which wasn’t really much of a save in Ben’s opinion.

‘Thanks,’ he said bluntly, deciding that enough was enough. ‘But I don’t need your approval to do this.’

Something pained crept into Rook’s expression then, before he sighed and lowered his head, hands dropping from Ben’s shoulder like the human was suddenly hot to the touch. He looked so downcast that for a moment Ben was tempted to reach out and stroke the thick black central stripe that took over his scalp, the arrowed point of it hovering in front of him at just the right height for his fingers to reach in and scratch. But then the moment broke, was gone and whipped away by the speed in which Rook’s head suddenly shot up, a new, bright gleam of determination present in his eyes.

‘Do not ferry materials for anyone in there.’ He spoke fiercely, as though hurrying to get his words across. ‘But do not be afraid to ask for small, innocuous favours for yourself; I have read that this is a good way to subconsciously build rapport without putting yourself at risk.’

That...certainly explained that strange second week of their acquaintance when Rook had rather persistently asked Ben to hand him his tablet, and then that oily rag for his proto-tool, followed by three hundred other little tools, even if they had been less than two metres away at the time. And it might have continued for a lot longer until Ben had snapped at him for treating him like an ‘air hostess’.

‘And,’ continued Rook, his finger now pointing straight at Ben’s face as though daring him to complain. ‘You will wear ‘flip-hops’ in the shower. The prison bathrooms are probably the ideal location to pass on warts and other fungal infections.’

Ben suppressed a shudder. ‘That’s flip- _flops_ , Rook.’

‘I do not care. I merely wish to safeguard your heath.’ Then the Revonnahgander sighed and with what looked to be a herculean effort, attempted a smile. ‘Either way: _I will wait for you,_ Ben.’ The proud tinge in his voice and the gentle way in which one of his hands came up to slide over Ben’s knuckles told the human all he needed to know about precisely what sort of peace-offering his boyfriend was going for. One filled with pop-culture, or at the very least, a cheesy, oft repeated line from any number of jokes or procedural dramas. Or possibly a movie.

He chuckled. ‘Look at it this way,’ he said airily, one of his hands now coming up to brush and fall against the soft slide of Rook’s cheek in a show of cheap forgiveness. ‘You’ll get to put me in handcuffs for once. And come on, how often have you wished for the excuse to do that?’

Rook narrowed his eyes – or at least struggled to, given the gently, sloping glide of Ben’s thumb and the way it soothed a path across the raked-up ruffles of his fur. ‘I have never wished for your arrest, Ben. But for you to be put in restraints? I will confess, the thought gives me more pleasure than it should.’

Ben giggled. ‘Wanna give it a trial run?’

Rook stared at him thoughtfully, his fingers beginning to trace the outline of Ben’s stomach from under the loose fall of his shirt. ‘Alright,’ he said finally, a slight grin appearing on his face afterwards.

And Ben giggled again, the gentle vibration in his throat doing nothing to deter the tickle of Rook’s furry fingers as they traveled up against the slope of his chest. Because make-up sex was the _best_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What could go wrong?


	4. Girl Talk

 

Ben wasn’t entirely right. Rook wasn’t the one to escort him to the prison; Grandpa Max fed him some bullshit line about how it would be more convincing for him to be marched in by a pair of strangers.

‘Besides,’ he had remarked with his arms crossed grimly; though this had been betrayed by the teasing hue of his voice. ‘Rook may be a top-notch Plumber, but his acting skills leave a lot to be desired. If I send him in, the prison will be afloat with rumours of an undercover job by dawn.’

Which wasn’t entirely accurate, Ben thought; Rook had gotten a lot better at lying than the early days of their partnership would indicate. But he was also a being naturally given to sentiment and Grandpa was right; he probably wouldn’t be able to stop himself from smiling at Ben a little when he thought no one would be watching, or flicking his thumb across Ben’s pulse line when undoing the cuff. And that wasn’t really the treatment they were going for here.

So he was he was bundled in unceremoniously between the shoulders of two suited-up guards, the bulge in their darkly-visored helmets and chests reminding him of Bullfrag. They set up a fast-paced march, dragging him down corridors that had seen too little light and Ben shivered to see the murk and slime hanging off the pipes that threaded through the ceilings. It was definitely a step down from the cells in Plumber’s headquarters.

And yet...a lot of other things were similar. The cells possessed that same hexagonal build, retaining that odd gleaming sense of a beehive about them, perhaps because of the way they were clustered together on top of each other in a pyramid scheme. There was even a long solid glide of transparent material covering their openings in the same way honey sap was encouraged to run over the combs inside a real hive. Ben made a face as he realised that he was expected to do his business in public, or at least in full display of the other prisoners; there was such a basic depravity in the lack of privacy that he finally got why Animo had always kicked up such a fuss. He was just thankful that he hadn’t eaten too much that time he was mistaken for Albedo in the Plumber’s prison.

The thick cuffs clanking round his wrist sounded like the clink of too much cheap jewellery and he was grateful, after he was bustled inside, to have the one on his right ripped off, as well as the resulting chain that arched between them. That surge of gratefulness continued even more when the guards’ fingers didn’t linger over his skin the way Rook’s would have done and he sighed, feeling a little uneasy that he couldn’t slam his hand down on the Omntirx if he needed to. He waited until the guards were gone before he stepped over to the gleam of the cell door.

‘Sunny?’ he whispered, feeling a little too much like a criminal as he pressed his palms against the glass-like structure and tried to peer into one of the cells directly next to him. ‘Psst!’

There was a faint stirring in the cell next to him, like someone rustling the bedcovers. Then a soft, grumpy little, _‘what?’_

Ben breathed a sigh of relief. They had set him up next to her; he probably wouldn’t have had much time to chat to her every time they were let out into the exercise yard or whatever.

‘I thought that was you! I caught a glimpse of you before those bozos threw me in here,’ he lied, praying that those same guards were not watching the security feed that very minute.

There was another snicker of sound, and then a slightly heavier rustle.  

‘Oh,’ she said, sounding very, very bored; Ben could feel her nose wrinkling by the nasally twang in her tone. ‘It’s _you_.’

Ben raised an eyebrow. ‘Nice to see you too, cuz.’

‘Urgh! Don’t call me that! We’re not cool, not at all. You’re on _Gwen’s_ side.’

Ben frowned. ‘Gwen has nothing to do with this,’ he said in a very clipped voice. ‘You landed yourself in this prison.’

He could hear her huffing and inwardly, he winced. _Way to go Tennyson_ , he could picture Kevin saying. _Get her to close up like a clam. Nice going._

‘Sunny? Sunny!’

But no matter what he tried, she wouldn’t respond. Not even to share her thoughts on the newest Sumo-Slammer movie, though he have sworn, for a moment, that he heard the faintest mutter of ‘Hick trash’ passing between the walls that separated them.

He huffed and crashed back against the thin cot that was meant to serve as his bed. The sheets were thin and felt slightly slimy against his waist. Ben made a face. Who was the last prisoner here? And did the guards even bother to clean up after him?

He sighed and kicked the side of the wall. Maybe he would have better luck tomorrow.

 

\-------------------------- 

 

‘Sooo do you ever practise magic like Gwen does?’

Silence.

‘I mean, you’re an Anodite, which means you’re made of mana so everything you do is supercharged when you do, you know, spells.’

More silence.

Ben idly realised that perhaps encouraging her to take up spell-crafting as a hobby wasn’t a good idea, especially given the fact that she had a lot more raw power than Gwen did. She could turn out worse than Charmcaster.

‘Err, ya know, on second thought, why would you want to be more like Gwen? She’s so...stuffy.’

He hears a responding sniff and gets an idea.

‘Yeeeah. She’s been that way since were kids. Always has to be right about everything, can’t ever take a break...’ Getting a little too into it, he starts listing the reasons off the top of his fingers. ‘Everything has to be clean like no-dust-on-bookshelves-clean, you can’t touch her desk or you’re dead, she complains about fingermarks on her laptop, I mean, hello, that always happens no matter what you do, and if you ever bring up the word ‘witch’ to describe someone, oh boy are you in trouble...’

Sunny gave a rigid little laugh. ‘Yeah, sounds like her all right.’

Ben frowned. He didn’t really know or understand Sunny: she was a complete stranger to him. Heck, she was a complete stranger to Gwen. The last time they had any real, meaningful interaction with each other, they were three and all they were concerned about were the colour of their dolls’ dresses.

But Sunny had been quiet these last few days. Horrendously quiet. Nothing like the valley-girl chick she’d come off as on their first encounter.

‘What’s up?’ he asked finally, eyes glued to the blank wall in front of him, as though it could cut out a window into her cell. ‘The last time we saw each other, properly saw each other, you were just interested in having a good time. But...you hurt my partner’s sister. Just for some crop. I mean, you’ve always been a fan of violence, but you could have killed her. That seems excessive, even for you.’

‘So?’ demanded Sunny irritably. ‘It’s not like I didn’t teleport her to the nearest hospital. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

Ben growled under his breath, trying to keep his temper. He actually liked Shar and not just because she was his boyfriend’s sister. She was adventurous and reckless, always quick to leap into action, and quite frankly she reminded him of when he was younger and a little less experienced. And so it had hurt to see a part of that die in that hospital bed, her face appearing quiet and withdrawn, like she was re-thinking things.

‘Her name is Shar,’ he said, all of him steel in the way he spoke, a cold heavy threat in his voice. ‘Rook Shar. And she deserved better than running into someone like _you_.’

He turned from the wall, suddenly not at all in the mood to talk.

 

\-------------------------- 

 

‘I just don’t get it!’ he ranted over the phone to Rook later. Had it been one of those old fashioned phones his mum had been so fond of, the ones with the spiralled cord hanging in a loop from receiver to main body, he would have been busy tangling his fingers into the knobbly curls in his agitation. But it wasn’t. ‘She’s so...guarded! I mean you wouldn’t expect it from her of all people, but there you go. I mean, she’s worse than Kai! Because you know, Kai actually _talks_ to me.’

It was his turn to use his allotted phone call, one every sixteen hours and instead of queuing up the way you did in human prisoners, there was a small handset built into the wall of each cell, kinda resembling a radio transistor. The mouth-piece was held in place by a magnetised clamp that sprang free whenever a prisoner made a request to the people who brought their meal-carts round. The only downside was that there was no screen built into the body, so he was unable to see Rook’s face. But that did nothing to deter the warmth that still spread through him when his boyfriend spoke.

‘Really, Ben? Are you sure you did not do anything to spur this lack of cooperation?’

Ben winced and recalled their last conversation.

‘Well...’

Rook sighed. It descended through the mouthpiece in a rattle, a slight spark of static causing to it to form into a dense roll of sound, much like the sea falling away from the shore.

‘Ignoring that,’ he said, his tone dry, ‘is it really wise to be discussing this so near her cell?’

Ben waved dismissively despite the fact that Rook couldn’t see him.

‘It’s fine, she’s asleep...what, you think I’d be stupid enough to call you when she was awake?’

‘But if you cannot see her, how can you be sure?’

‘She snores, Rook. Terribly. And no girl would ever pretend to sound like a troll in order to fool people listening. She’d give breathy little sighs instead.’ He smirked. ‘I should know; I shared an entire summer with Gwen in the back of a camper van. She sucked at it.’

Rook seemed to digest this. ‘I suppose...’

Ben grinned. ‘Trust me,’ he said.

‘I suppose I have no choice.’

Ben frowned. ‘That’s not nice,’ he complained. ‘Some boyfriend you are. You’re supposed to have faith in me. Proper faith. Not the kind of faith where you wait for me to screw up.’

‘My apologies,’ Rook murmured, though his thoughts sounded far away and caused Ben to scowl even harder. ‘But if you will allow me to interject with an idea...’

Ben took the time to breathe long and hard against the mouthpiece and smiled to himself as he heard a slight clutter of noise at the other end; evidence that Rook had jumped away in shock.

‘Please do not do that.’

Ben laughed. ‘Alright Einstein, what’s your idea?’

There was a slight puff at the other end and Ben could imagine the swell of Rook’s chest and the pleased smile on his lips at the perceived compliment. And sure enough:

‘That is quite a compliment, Ben, considering the historical acclaim humans have given Einstein’s intellect,’ Rook stated, pride tingeing his voice. ‘Alright; you say Sunny is defensive, guarded when she talks to you?’

‘Yep.’

‘Well,’ said Rook slyly, ‘I once knew someone very similar to Sunny. They would brush off my attempts to be friendly, and huff and pout when they did not get their way.’

Ben leant against the wall, sliding down slightly so he could cup the full weight of his mouthpiece against his cheek. ‘Yeah?’ he asked, a slight smile twitching at his lips. ‘Wow, what a _jerk_.’

‘He had his good points,’ Rook hastily rushed to assure him and Ben coughed to disguise the chuckle racing up through his throat. ‘And it was more than worth the effort of breaking through the walls he put up in the end.’ There was a faint pause. ‘Very worthwhile,’ Rook pronounced softly, a faint promise in his voice.

Ben strictly reminded himself that this was not that kind of phone call. ‘Is there an actual point to your story?’

‘Yes,’ Rook said promptly. ‘This someone was very lonely. He needed a friend. Just like Sunny does now.’

Ben frowned. ‘Rook, what do you think I’ve been trying to do? I can’t exactly offer to take her to a party. Besides, given the way she went on and on about Antonio last time, I think the only relationship she really understands is one from a bad romance novel.’

‘I was getting to that! Ben, the only way I got through to the friend in my example was by not exhibiting any sort of defensive behaviour.  I put up little to no guard so that in the end he was compelled to lower his own. Remember what I said the last time we met about asking favours and building a rapport? It is just like that.’

‘Hmm,’ Ben tapped the corner of his lip. ‘You know that gives me an idea...’

 

\-------------------------- 

 

The prison was never totally dark, not even at night. There were faint tiles in the ceiling, with curved bulges to their seems, one that lit up with an eerie glow the same way that the reflective spheres of glass called ‘cat’s eyes’ on Earth did late at night. Ben stared at them for a while, listening. But there was no sound of snoring.

‘Sunny? You awake.’

No answer. But then what had he really expected?

He sighed, let the noise drift out of him, loud and noisy. ‘I can’t sleep,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve had trouble for a while now; it just isn’t the same...’ he hesitated, nibbling on his lip for a moment. Was he really going to...?

He pictured Shar lying in her bed, her brother beside her, his face creased in worry. And then he blew out an irritable breath.

‘I can’t sleep without my boyfriend.’ There. The words were said, pulled out from between gritted teeth. And yet the world didn’t explode and reporters didn’t come crashing through the ceiling to assault him. The universe for once, was behaving.

There was a rustle from the cell beside him, the sound of blankets hastily crashing to the floor with a soft thump.

‘ _You_ ,’ Sunny said, the word loud and filled with astonishment, ‘have a _boyfriend_?’

Ben winced and pictured her smashing her cheeks up against the glass like she was in a zoo exhibit, desperate to catch sigh of an elusive beast. 

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘small universe, huh?’

‘Wow...’ Sunny sounded a little too awed in his opinion. ‘What’s he like?’

‘Well, he’s...’ Ben hesitated again and then let out a little laugh. ‘You’d hate him. He’s by the book like Gwen, and he talks weird and takes everything way too literally, but...but it’s kinda cool how he isn’t embarrassed about making mistakes and asking for help. And he’s really smart, like human-genius smart, which yeah, I know, might not be impressive by the universe’s standards or whatever big social circles _you_ mingle with, but he can do things that it would take me turning into Grey Matter to understand.’

‘Grey Matter?’

‘A Galvan.’

‘Ooooh...’

Ben tried to brush away the surge of irritation he felt that she didn’t pay close enough attention to him to know that he gave his alien forms nicknames.

‘I guess I just...miss him.’ He felt stupid saying it; he had been separated from Rook for far longer than this before. But it wasn’t a total lie either. He had gotten too used to Rook’s presence now that they were a couple, too accustomed to the space of his body in his bed and the fur on his hands and the way they invaded every part of him that he’d once considered too private to touch.

‘I get it,’ Sunny sighed. ‘Oh, I doooo. The way he holds you and kisses you and calls you ‘baby’...god, I miss him.’

‘Your boyfriend?’ Ben asked, feeling a little amused at how quickly her sympathising with him had turned to her own sadness.

Sunny sighed one of those cast-down, we-is-me sighs, the kind overly dramatic and incredibly hammy actors put on for their performance. ‘His name’s Fistrick and he’s great. He’s got this Devil-may-care attitude and unlike my ex he actually cares about what he looks like, you know? He’s wonderful and he actually likes to work out with me and give me tips.’

Ben blinked. ‘You’re an Anodite,’ he pointed out. ‘A naturally born one. You don’t actually need to eat and watch what you weigh the same way we do. You can just build yourself a body whenever you want.’

‘I know, I know, but that’s what makes it so great!’ gushed Sunny enthusiastically. ‘Because he does it anyway! He doesn’t let anything keep him from his passions! He has the soul of a true man! Not like Antonio who was always in constant need of babying!’

 _Oh my God,_ thought Ben. _Help_. He cleared his throat. ‘How’d you two meet anyway?’ he asked. ‘I mean, you’ve always thought of us humans as hicks. And Fistrick...definitely a small-town kinda guy.’

Sunny giggled mischievously. ‘Oh no, that’s because you don’t know him like I do. He dreams biiiig.’

Ben swallowed. ‘How big?’

There was a pause. And then, with a clear ring of suspicion in her tone, Sunny asked, ‘why do you want to know? Aren’t you like, with the Plumbers or something?’

Ben snorted. ‘Yeah, and look how they treat me! I help arrest you and this is the thanks I get! A crummy cell with no view!’

Sunny giggled, though she didn’t sound totally appeased. ‘That wicked party you threw probably didn’t help either.’

Ben decided to change tacks. ‘Still,’ he said, trying to make himself sound as airy as possible. ’It’s not like this is much better than my boyfriend’s place. It’s...okay it’s not quite as cramped. But it’s all Spartan, with all these pale green tones. Don’t get me wrong, I love a little green. But it’s everywhere, and he doesn’t hang up enough pictures to cover it. Makes it seem like an underground bunker or something. I mean, would _you_ want to spend the night there?’

 _C’mon_ , he thinks, _take the bait, take the bait..._

‘That’s nothing,’ Sunny said flippantly. ‘My boyfriend lives in an old warehouse for disused spacecraft. There’s scrap metal lying all over the floor. Totally wild, but still a bit annoying.’

_Yeeeess..._

‘At least you don’t have to worry about cutting your feet on it?’ Ben offered up. ‘Still, at least my boyfriend’s place has got an actual bathroom. I mean, I can’t imagine there’s something like that lying round a warehouse.’

Sunny snorts. ‘Don’t be gross! My boyfriend takes his health seriously, remember? He stole part of a car-wash to set up the plumbing, made a huuuge almost swimming-pool-like room for us to bathe in. Heck, he was even smart enough to steal access to the Xtranet from the signals rising off the shop next door from some loser called Mr Baumann.’

Ben’s smile unfurled slowly, the corners of it peeking up into a sly set of crinkles.

‘Oh, really?’ he purred. ‘He sure sounds smart, your boyfriend.’

‘Mmmhmm,’ hummed Sunny happily. ‘That’s right! The smartest!’

 

\-------------------------- 

 

‘Earth,’ he told Rook later excitedly, as soon as he had slapped his hands together in a begging prayer in front of one the prison staff – and as soon as he could hear the familiar snores of Sunny rising from her cell Sunny. ‘Next to Mr Baumann’s store, in a warehouse filled with old spacecraft and with a large shower-room place attached, kinda like a swimming pool? They were riding signals of Mr Baumann’s store, so they gotta be close by right? And I figure you can do something techy to trace those signals back to their location to make sure...right?’

‘Understood,’ said Rook with a big smile in his voice. ‘Something ‘techy?’ Yes, I can manage that.’

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sunny is really, really fun to write, guys. Stupidly fun. Maybe it was for the best that she only ever appeared in once episode, because it gives me a chance to expand her character and I dunno, maybe eventually help her grow? Possibly give her a chance canon probably never will? We'll see.
> 
> And no, shit has not hit the fan quite yet.


	5. Breaking Out

 

‘ _No, no, no!_ ’

Rook ignored Mr Baumann’s screech and plunged his fist into Liam’s stomach - the avian flew backwards and let out a spluttered cluck as his elbows glanced across a shelf filled to the brim with baked beans, causing them to ricochet and fall to the floor in a clash of noise. Before the sound could fade, Rook followed up his punch with a quick summersault into the air, his leg springing out from the roll into a streamlined kick that flattened the comb of Liam’s head. Liam wobbled for a moment under the pressure, his eyes wide beneath the new fringe of red Rook’s boot had forced down against them, before Rook twisted again to deliver violent pinch to the same area of the neck he had seen Ben’s relative, Clyde, massage once before with his nimble fingers. The effect wasn’t quite the same; for one thing Liam didn’t flop over like a well-stroked cat. But he did collapse at Rook’s feet. And that was a clear victory, as far as Rook was concerned

‘No!’

Rook looked up as he fastened the cuffs round Liam’s wrist, just in time to see Molly Gunther whack Corvo over the head with her blaster and send him careening into the shelves – shelves which he promptly knocked over, a few large purple eggs smattering with a resounding crack onto the floor.

Mr Baumann let out a wail at the sight of their green yolks, and the next moment stared out in disbelief as the wall to his shop suddenly burst open, water flooding in through the broken bricks and pieces of plaster in a swirling cascade that would not have been out of place in a disaster movie scene. Rook’s eyes widened and he quickly sprung to the top of one of the still-standing shelves, hauling Liam up by the neck onto the dry wood a moment later.

‘Mr Baumann!’ he called out, only to see the shop-owner’s head pop up above the waves like a boiled egg - one that was not smashed. Though the glower on his face was far from reassuring.

‘My wife is an aquatic alien who spends the majority of her time underwater,’ he pronounced through gritted teeth. ‘I think you’ll find that I can swim, thank you very much.’   

‘Wow, what do you want, a medal?’ Corvo grumbled, his wrists slung over the top of a floating plank and held in place by a set of shimmering  handcuffs. From the other side, Molly growled at him and brandished her weapon with her free hand.

It was at that point that Magister Patelliday poked his head out from behind the soggy sign announcing a discount on lima beans. There were a couple of scorch marks running over his face and Rook noticed one of the lens in his glasses had cracked.

‘Well, looks like Ben was righ’,’ the Magister sighed. ‘There was a sweet little watering-hole of a bathhouse attached to that warehouse and several crates of stolen fruit. Key word bein’ ‘was.’ Too bad Fistrick set up some kinda pressure-pad bomb system in place. Blew me clear off ma feet.’

‘And the wall of my store,’ Mr Baumann practically hissed.

Patelliday looked a bit shame-faced at that. ‘Our apologies.’ Then his head, much like a owl's, swivelled round to face Rook head-on. ‘There was no sign of any of that Amber Ogia though. Must have stashed it elsewhere.’

Rook sighed in annoyance. All this, for a wild moose chase; Fistrick was nowhere to be found.  And he doubted Liam had him on speed-dial. Corvo might do, but that was a long-shot at best.

Now: what to tell Ben?

 

\--------------------------

 

‘Classic,’ Ben said, a clear smirk in his voice. ‘The universe strikes again.’

Rook sighed. ‘Why are you being like this? Not once, _not once_ , did I utter the words ‘What could go wrong’ or ‘at least things cannot get any worse’ at any point in the events I have just narrated to you.’

‘Dude, chill.’ Ben voice descended into his ear, still sounding strangely jubilant. ‘Just let me bask in the fact that for once someone other than me trashed Mr Baumann’s stuff.’

‘Several someones actually,’ Rook murmured. ‘And it does not change the fact that Mr Baumann accused us all of having been around you too much. Something about ‘rubbing off’ on us, which I am pretty sure is not true. If it is, I will be quite upset that you have been sharing more body contact than is necessary with Plumbers other than myself.’

‘No, no, that’s just an...’

Rook waited with a smile as Ben remembered the slight tease that had ran through his voice moments before.

‘You’re messing with me, aren’t you?’

‘Your mother has made enough comments regarding her hopes that certain aspects of my behaviour will ‘rub off’ on you for me to be able to recognise the remark as an expression, yes.’ 

‘Figures,’ Ben muttered. But the next second his voice took on a breezy tone, one airy enough for Rook’s frown to slam down in worry in response. ‘Guess we’ll have to go with a good old-fashioned ‘prison-break’ then.’

‘Ben...’

‘Not to worry!’ Ben reassured him in a tone that, to Rook’s ears, was far from reassuring. ‘I have everything under control. Or I will, as soon as you explain to me a few things...’

 

\--------------------------

 

All it had taken was a single line to get her to agree.

‘Hey, Sunny, want to get back with your boyfriend again?’

‘Um, yeah, _duh_.’

And Ben grinned.

 

\--------------------------

 

Guard Mullock was having the usual boring day. Patrolling slime-infested corridors, checking the time-stamp on camera, wheeling out trays of what seemed to him to be full of inedible food...yawn. What he wouldn’t do for some excitement.

And it was just as this thought passed through his head, that a loud bang shot off outside of it. Cautiously, he yanked out his baton from his belt, fiddling with the buttons on its hilt; blue for an ice-plasma discharge and red for a surge of taser-inspired electricity. There had been arguments from some of the Plumbers recently that this was a barbaric tool, designed to incapacitate with no regard for a species' susceptibility to either one of these elements. Frankly, Mullock thought they should all just take a hike. They didn’t know what it was like to work in such a gloomy place, with nothing but the dripping of unidentified slime slinging itself down from greasy pipelines. No, not them with their fancy uniforms and universal blaster-guns...

Letting his complaints shift into a circulating grumble within his own head, Mullock followed the ‘bang’ to its source, realising that a shrill voice had imposed itself over the silence the initial noise should have left behind in its wake.

‘Hey, like, _guards_ , my lame-o cousin needs help! He’s collapsed. Humans do that – they run out of energy so fast, it’s freaky.’

She didn’t sound too broken up about it, Mullock reflected wryly. But then that was energy beings for you; they floated around like they were so superior, all high and mighty in their naked glowing silhouettes that you just wanted a black hole to swallow all of them and their arrogance down...

His thoughts now taking up a spiral of hatred towards Sunny and all those like her beneath her fleshy covering, he raked his thumb across the scanner next to Ben’s cell and waited for the shifting gleam of the door to pull away. Heaving down a sigh at the sight of Ben Tennyson slumped down on the floor, he couldn't help but conjure up the following headline; _Hero Struck down too Young._ And whose fault would it end up being, no doubt? That's right, Mullock's. Somewhat moodily, he used his baton to roll the little ape onto his back.

‘Yo,’ he said, prodding him once, then twice. ‘You’re not dead, right?’

‘Nope!’ said the mouth that a moment ago had been lax and partway open. ‘But ‘yo’ yourself!’

And the human's left hand shot up, straight into the end of the baton, his right hand reaching up as though to dial for one of his alien forms. Too late Mullock realised that this was an impossibility, the metallic clamp surrounding the white gleam of the Omnitrix, a clear testament to that fact. But he had already reacted to the perceived threat, his fingers reflexively ramming down on both buttons in his fear.

Ben grimaced, his mouth falling open in a yell as electricity danced over his form, tucking itself round each writhing twist of movement with crackles of white glee. But despite the pain, his left hand remained glued to the end of the baton with what seemed to be nothing more than stubbornness, the colour of the manacle taking on a slight blue haze under the flickers of steam. Wasting no more time, Ben turned and rammed his wrist down on the floor, the electricity disappearing with a last grasp of tiny white fingers into the creases of his clothing. But the pain had been worth it; the gauntlet cracked and then shattered as though it had become as frail as ice. Turning his head over his shoulder to give Mullock a pained wink, Ben then rammed the Omnitrix against the floor once again, hard enough for a very familiar surge of green light to flash across the cell.

Meanwhile, from her position near the entrance to her cell, Sunny huffed.

‘Urgh,’ she said, as she heard a rather loud thump and then a muffled groan coming from next door. ‘This is taking foreeeever...’

‘Well,’ puffed out Ben as the large hand of Humungousaur slammed against the screened door of her cell. ‘Excuse me for getting tasered.’

He eyed the access panel on the wall in front of him briefly, before yanking Mullock up by the arm to press the guy’s thumb as lightly as he could against it. Flaring with a yellow light, it let out a beep and then Sunny was stepping out with a grin and a twirl in her step.

‘Much better,’ she declared with a wink, before she held her wrist up to Ben’s eyes with a pout. ‘Can’t you do something about this mean old bracelet though?’

Ben shrugged, conveniently leaving out the suspicion he had that the icy plasma would probably be enough to help shatter it. Rook had been right about the fact that it would be enough to help free the Omnitrix after all.

‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘no can do; unless you want the bones in your wrist crushed too. Humungousaur’s not too good at fine motor control, at least not with anything smaller than a crowbar.’

Sunny made a face. ‘So what? I have to stick with you til...?’

Ben sighed impatiently. ‘Til we both find somewhere safe,’ he lectured her, feeling uncomfortably like Rook as he did so. ‘Now I’m all out of ideas and since I came out with this break-out-of-jail one, it’s your turn to deliver.’

He grimaced as a few guards began to show up.

‘Now why don’t you think it over while I take care of these guys?’

It wasn’t exactly a foolproof strategy. But Fistrick was in the wind and Sunny was probably the one person who might have some inkling where he was. And given how...obsessed she was at the idea of being star-crossed lovers with someone, it stood to reason that she’d want to reunite with him as soon as possible.  Of course as a full-blown Anodite she could have tracked down his mana in a second. But Ben doubted he could get her to play ball as soon as she had access to her powers once again, so it looked like they would be stuck with each other for the unforeseeable future.

Ben punched a guard that came up to his knee and hoped this idea wouldn’t blow up in his face.

 

\--------------------------

 

‘Lame,’ Sunny huffed not six minutes later as Ben shoved her inside a small space cruiser that was docked into the side of the prison.

‘Shut it,’ he muttered, wincing as a blast of purple energy hit him in the shoulder. He quickly kneed the guard in the lower chest area, right against the cracks the fist of his Humungosaur form had crunched out earlier, letting a smile of satisfaction rise to his face as the guard grunted and dropped. The armour they were wearing was durable no doubt, hard enough to deliver a harsh slap of pain against his knee, one he could just visualise turning into a bruise later on; but it also left them a little slow, limited by the rigid weight of the metal. He made a mental note to ask Rook whether Proto-armour would ever be considered for distribution to organisations outside the Plumbers, before shoving his fist against the button near the door and watching with relief as it sealed off his view of the rest of the prison.

Sunny huffed again. ‘How do you drive this thing? It doesn’t have any shiny buttons.’

Ben rolled his eyes. ‘Let me guess; you fly everywhere using your Anodite powers? Yeeeah, see this is why I have a driver’s permit and a bus pass. In case, you know, I have to actually drive somewhere.’

Now it was Sunny’s turn to roll her eyes. ‘Yeah, permits and passes for boring earth-bound vehicles! And I mean that term like, literally! Those things have no soul, they’re limited, trapped by the weight of gravity from your puny planet. Or at least-’ she stopped, letting out a jubilant laugh as another blast from outside rammed its way against the door. ‘-that’s what my boyfriend says.’

Ben raised his eyebrows, as he fiddled with a random array of button and gear sticks. No matter what Rook or Sunny said, driving a small space-ship wasn’t that much different from a car. You still had the stuff for acceleration and braking and steering...it was just rearranged in a way that didn’t make a lot of sense, that’s all.

‘Put your seatbelt on,’ he said with a forced calmness. The engines fired up under the touch of a green button and he gripped the handles in front of him, the wavy ridges riding into his human skin like blunted teeth. ‘It’s gonna be a bumpy ride.’

Sunny gave him an evil look - but she did what he said none the less.

 

\--------------------------

 

Six hours later, Rook was staring at the star-speckled map on the holo-viewer in front of him. A crazy line consisting of sharp turns and curves that doubled back on themselves wove its way out from the prison’s dock before it dove off into deep-space with a sudden straightness that spoke of Ben’s fumbling around with the control panel until he found the light-speed function.

Rook sighed and rubbed his brow. At least Ben had been nice enough to pick out the small purple space-cruisers Rook had told him to go for rather than the sleek grey pods that could jettison into alternate solar systems with a flick of a button. The tracking systems on those were still a bit wonky. On the craft Ben had chosen though...

Rook smiled and let his finger casually drift along the line Ben had left for him to find. There was sure to be a trial of destruction in its wake, one that being a Plumber-trained detective was sure to aid him in trailing.

 

\--------------------------

 

Not half an hour later Rook was frowning again as he arrived at the place the trail had cut off with a blinking dot. No one was here. And the only thing that was left to announce the fact that anyone had been, was the smoking remains of a wrecked prison cruiser, hovering above a scorching star that should have been a planet flourishing with life. Or, as Gwen or Charmcaster would have put it, mana.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, now shit has hit the fan.


	6. A Lesson in Self-Respect

 

Things had been going fine. At least, that’s what Ben told himself.

After he had finally got the stupid light-speed feature working and ground out the stars beside their window into streaks of light, Sunny had twisted her brow and started muttering to herself. Ben had been about to ask if she was constipated, before she started snapping out instructions like ‘drop out here!’ or ‘right, right, RIGHT!’ or even, ‘no, the other right, _moron_!’ He guessed it made sense; hadn’t Grandpa said that the bracelet couldn’t seal off an Anodite’s connection to the universe as a whole? Grandma had still had access to her telepathy when she was trapped with it decades ago and Ben found himself wincing at the thought. Because he sure hoped Sunny didn’t possess a similar sort of insight into his mind. Then again, he doubted she was the type of person to delve to deeply into the thoughts of someone she considered a lame relative. He was far too ‘small-town’ for her.

Which just went to prove that it wasn’t powers who made a person, or in his case, a hero. Cheered by this thought, he was then promptly knocked out of it by Sunny clutching at his elbow.

‘Oh my atoms, we’re here!’

Ben stared out of the window in front of him and blinked. Before them was a planet he had only ever seen in Plumber files, mostly because after Grandma Verdona’s first visit, Gwen had spent the entire week staring at it on her laptop. But now he was looking at the real thing, at the firey red glare it cast out against the surrounding darkness, the Mars-like gleam of its colour softened only by the crossed-over slant of it’s Saturn-like rings. Each one shone faintly with a trail of disintegrating orange dust.  And it made him feel...weird to look at.

‘Home,’ Sunny breathed, sounding oddly full of reverence – far from the spoiled protests she had given against it the last time Verdona had dragged her back there. And strangely enough, Ben felt oddly awed as well. This was where his Grandma was from, part of the Tennyson family tree had descended from this very rock, from outer space, and looking at it made his ears ring slightly.

Wait... _what?_ He frowned and shook it off, disturbed by the odd roar that swooshed against his eardrums as though he had been swimming underwater. Glancing to the side, he winced as he saw the tell-tell gleam of a space-station circling within its orbit. It looked identical to the one Fistrick had once perched above Revonnah, back when he had first stolen Amber Ogia.

‘Why is Fistrick circling Anodyne?’ he asked grimly.

Sunny hugged his arm even harder. ‘ _Obviously_ our connection is strong enough to survive anything! And he set up shop right where he knew I’d eventually come back to!’

Ben turned to her with a glare, trying not to mind too much as her nails dug into his skin. ‘Pull the other one. He didn’t even know you were in jail – or if he did, he didn’t expect you to break out so soon. And anyway, can’t you track other people by their mana?’

Sunny wrinkled her nose and sunk back down into her seat, glowering as Ben let out a sigh at the red puncture marks her nails left behind. ‘Yeah, but...but he came to _my_ home planet! He obviously missed me _soooo_ much that he just  had to come here, to catch a glimpse of some other Anodite so he could be reminded of my ‘babe-like beauty.’'

She sighed, hands fluttering up to her chin to serve as a delicate perch, fingers roped into a church steeple-like shape as she stared dreamily out of the window. And then her index finger rose up to shiver against her lips, almost like an imaginary kiss.

Ben promptly stuffed his hand against his mouth to prevent the laughter from breaking out. ‘He actually said that? ‘Babe-like beauty?’

‘Yes!’ said Sunny enthusiastically, head turning back to him with a slight flush in her cheeks. ‘A word from his ‘bro’ culture to describe me! It’s so poetic!’

It’s something all right, Ben thought. But Sunny was staring at him with a look of eager expectation, exactly the same way Rook did when he thought he’d used some new Earthern expression correctly, and somehow Ben couldn’t quite bring himself to squash that. ‘It’s nice that he says nice things to you,’ he managed and promptly felt like slapping himself in the face.

Sunny beamed. ‘Totally! I bet Kevin’s never been that thoughtful with Gwen! Ha!’

And wow, okay, this was _really_ not the sort of conversation Ben was willing to sign up for.

‘Maybe we should get closer to Fistrick’s space-station? See if there’s a way of reuniting you two lovebirds?’ he suggested warily.

Luckily Sunny didn't read too much into his tone. ‘Yes!' she exclaimed brightly, 'forward, slave!’

Ben just gave her a long, solid look, enough to make her smile turn sheepish before she turned it away from him, her fingers reaching out to idly pick against the pleats of her skirt. ‘I mean, please? Sorry I was trying a joke and it, err, didn’t work.’ She let out a nervous laugh for good measure.

Ben shook his head and wondered if she had ever had any actual friends. _Friends_ , not just exes and boyfriends. He was beginning to see why her parents had once believed that forcing her to interact with Gwen for a whole summer might have paid off.

He let the thought slide away and sighed, shoving at the controls and bringing the cruiser into a streamlined glide down towards the silvery gleam of the space-station. He ended up feeling a little proud as they fell into it’s shadow; Rook would never have believed him capable of figuring out these weird controls so quickly, or of getting the ship to handle like a dream.

As his eyes passed over the gleaming sides of the space-station for the usual dark ovals or hexagons that indicated docking areas, he heard Sunny’s voice drift over to him, a curious tremble lodged inside her words. ‘What sort of stuff does your boyfriend call you? I mean, you said he was boring, but even so...’

Ben frowned. ‘I never said he was boring,’ he argued, his eyes homing in on a space that looked ideal. He forced the handles forward and gave her a quick glance. ‘I said that you wouldn’t like him because he’s a straight shooter.’

‘Not that straight if he’s shooting for _you_.’

Ben’s frown deepened as her voice dissolved into a bunch of shaky giggles. ‘ _Aaaanyway_ ,’ he said dryly, feeling as though he was channeling Rook as he did so. ‘We don’t call each other 'babe'. Neither of us are girls, in case you haven’t noticed.’

Sunny frowned as they drifted into the dark tunnel, steel plates flashing all around to close off their view of the remaining stars. There was a dull thunk as Ben swirled the controls to the side and backed the main door against the hatch that would open up into the air-ventilated interior.

‘I’ve met gay guys before-’

‘We’re not gay! We still like girls and stuff!’

Sunny rolled her eyes. ‘Whatever. But they had no issue calling each other cute stuff.’

Ben sighed. ‘We don’t need pet names, okay? We just don’t. Our relationship isn’t like whatever books or shows you’ve seen.’

He very pointedly tried not to think of the teasing way he’d called Rook ‘farm-boy’ or ‘alley-cat’ and the way the words had rolled off his tongue during various work hours. Or the way Rook had groaned out a few syllables late at night to him, ones that Ben didn’t recognise from any alphabet he’d heard of, sounds that wavered and cut-out mid-breath as though they had had commas inserted inside them like _bi'nthak_ did. And they only ever came out when the guy was half-asleep and his face was lost to the pillow, softened by tiredness and a round of good sex.

But that...that didn’t count, right? What he called Rook, he could call anybody, who well, grew up on a farm or looked like a cat...and Rook-

‘It’s not what he says,’ Ben said finally, feeling an odd surge of responsibility well up inside him. ‘It’s how he says it. There’s a lot of ways someone can say your name, right? I mean, you must get it all the time with your parents and Grandma Verdona. When they’re angry they can make it sound like a curse. Rook too, when he’s annoyed with me. But he also-’

Ben bit his lip and looked down. A moment later his hand was fiddling with his seat-belt. ‘Anyway, it just sounds different when he says it. And this is gonna sound gross and romance-movie-cringe-worthy, but honestly? Sometimes when he says it, it sounds like no one’s ever said it before, at least not with that sort of tone. It’s all firm and I can’t describe it well, but I’m just...nobody’s ever...’

He trailed off and met Sunny’s eyes. ‘Nobody’s ever made me feel special just by saying my name. I’ve felt cared about when Grandpa or Mum or Gwen have said it, people like that, but as for feeling really truly special in that weird way that makes you feel important, planet-sized important to somebody else? Rook manages to make it happen with his voice. And I’ve never really had that before.’ He lifted himself out of his seat and something compelled him to keep his eyes on Sunny as he said his next line: ‘and I get the feeling you haven’t either.’

 

\--------------------------

 

Orange captured the insides of the vials, long sausage-shaped cylinders that lined every spare scrap of wall. Ben and Sunny walked through corridors filled with the stuff and Ben was transported briefly back to Anur Transyl, to the inside of Zs'Skayr’s castle  and the shimmering light of the liquid swirls inside the pods incubating the developing Vladats. He shuddered and climbed into the lift, feeling creeped out as it shot up through the shaft and failed to cut out the orange gleam entirely; the light still pierced into the gap between the disc-like base and the slightly wider tunnel it glided up through like persistent rays of sunlight.

‘Damn, what’s he doing with all this Amber Ogia? And how’d he get it? Shar can’t have been flying with _that_ much.’

Sunny gave him a sly smile; decorated by the wry flares of orange light that found a way to seep in, she looked like something out of a horror movie. ‘We’ve been copying it!’

Ben goggled at her. ‘You can’t! I mean, I know Grandma Verdona can rewrite living energy and restore ruined lawns and torn-up grass and stuff, but Amber Ogia is...well, it’s tricky. And delicate. It only grows well on Revonnah.’

He should know. He’d heard enough lectures from Rook on the subject.

Sunny giggled. ‘Yeah, Fistrick said how even on planets built for farming purposes that it was impossible to cultivate. He showed me some. They looked like yellow runner beans. But you know, once you analyse something, really get a handle on how it’s mana shifts and condenses into a unique energy signature and memorise it, you can reform it wherever you want.’

Ben’s jaw dropped. ‘Are you telling me you helped Fistrick clone a bunch of Amber Ogia?’

Sunny looks at him quizzically. ‘Well, yeah. I like that gleam he gets in his eye when he’s being ambitious. It’s good to have a man who dreams big.’

Ben threw his hands out on either side. ‘And breaks the _law_???’

‘It’s not illegal to clone Amber Ogia,’ Sunny said defensively, sounding so much like Gwen reciting a ‘fact’ that it was ridiculous. ‘Just to steal it.’

‘And was he planning the same for...any other fruit he was stealing?’

Sunny shrugged. ‘I don’t think so, otherwise he’d have asked for me to ‘work my magic.’

Ben growled. Bad things always happened when people started messing around with Amber Ogia.

‘You know,’ he said conversationally. ‘The last time Fistrick stole a load of Amber Ogia and set up a space-station, he tried to use it to blow up the planet below.’

Sunny scoffed at that. And Ben shrugged. Ah well, he tried.

The lift slowed and the doors opened with a faint whoosh of sound. Ben rolled out into a crouch, ready to duck, hand hovering over his watch. ‘Alright Fiskrick-’

‘ _ **Ricky!**_ ’ Sunny squealed and before Ben could stop her, she practically dove across the floor tiles that separated them, bundling herself and her arms round the taunt space of muscled chest Fistrick left open for her.

Ben stared at them both, mouthing ‘Ricky’ to himself in appalled fascination before the guy in question let a wry grin twist his mouth, his hand coming up to pat Ben's wayward family member on the head. ‘Hey, baby. Didn’t expect to see you here. And with Ben Ten, besides. I mean, I know he’s your cousin and all, but I thought you were like estranged? Because bringing your family round is kinda cramping my style.’

Sunny pouted up at him. ‘I knooow, but he helped me break outta jail and then I couldn’t shake him!’

‘Hey, standing right here!’ Ben yelled loudly, hand still hovering over the watch. Fiskrick’s arms were a little preoccupied with untangling Sunny from around his waist so he didn’t feel threatened but still, behind them both was a large expanse of glass or whatever it was space-station windows were made out of, and Anodyne was busy blaring out its colours from within its view. And looking at it was making Ben feel weird. The flare of dark red spots and brown patches littering its surface seemed to waver in front of his vision like a murky marble, threatening to run into a distorted river of lines. He swallowed at the image, feeling the odd swoosh of liquid-like sound seep back into his ears.

‘A-and I didn’t m-m-much appreciate being treated like your personal chauffeur, e-e-either!’ he managed to stammer out, cringing in embarrassment as he did so.

‘In a minute, Tennyson,’ Fistrick said, sounding in no way as perturbed as Ben felt he should. ‘What’s with the geek chic, doll? You look much finer as your Anodite self.’

Sunny pouted again and lifted up her wrist in answer. Fiskrick’s eyes immediately alighted on the gleam encircling it and before Ben could utter a protest, the criminal’s fingers tightened against the slender strip of metal and caused it to crumple as though he was welding no more than a nut-cracker against its surface.

‘Snap,’ Ben whispered, remembering the sentimental value the thing had held for his grandfather. He watched as it crashed down against the floor in two crinkled halves, cursing how outrageously strong Fistrick could be. Stronger than any human had a right to be.

Sunny let out a whoop and lifted herself into the air, her human skin peeling away into a heap that flopped down to land on Fistrick’s boots. He sighed and kicked it away gently as she rose up, eyes shining with power. Her hair instantly flowed out past the short length she’d chopped it into and became a gleaming flame that briefly covered her as the rest of her body dappled down into a dark spruce of purple.

‘It’s good to be back,’ she said, with that familiar Anodite resonance ringing throughout her voice. ‘Thank you Ricky!’ She swooped down to brush her gleaming arms against his sides, but before she could swamp him entirely, Fistrick grabbed her arms, his fingers coiling round her wrists in a way that made Ben feel a little sick.

‘Hey, babe,’ Fiskrick said, his voice taking on a softer hue like he was trying his best not to startle an animal. ‘I’m sorry to ask, but I need you to stick around so would you mind leaving, for another like, solar system? Nothing personal, I just prefer you as a girl rather than as a battery.’

Sunny drew back, confusion shaping her brow into a slanted arrow. It was disconcerting if only because it lacked the knot of muscle Ben was used to seeing twist inside instead.

‘What?’

‘Yeah _Ricky,_ what?’ Ben mimicked. ‘You’re totally fishing for energy sources, aren’t you? I mean, we all know how effective Amber Ogia-powered stuff is and I guess working with Sunny showed you just how powerful Anodites are. You’re probably wanting to trap them all in these little cylinders aren’t you? Turn them into batteries. People tried it to my Grandma once. It didn’t stick then, and it won’t stick now.’

Fistrick grinned in an odd smile that successfully bore all his teeth. It was an awkward move, a Rook move, and it made Ben’s blood boil to see it.

‘What, the Synthroid race? I managed to get some tips and tricks from one of them, after I got him strapped down to a table that is. Bro can’t press-lift as much as he claims, even with his ‘superior’ body. That’s what you get for being stuck in a body incapable of calorie intake and body-toning, I guess.’

‘Newsflash, ‘ _Ricky_ ’, nobody cares.’

Fistrick’s fucked-up grin immediately leveled out into a frown. ‘Well, obviously you don’t, bro. With a scrawny form like that, it’s a wonder you haven’t developed some kinda deficity.’

Sunny stared between the two, the hollows of her white eyes drooping slightly as the lines pronouncing their curves suddenly became weighed down with fear.

‘What are you talking about? Ricky’s cool, he would never do anything to hurt me or my world.’ She turned to Fistrick with a wavering smile. ‘Right? You and me forever, our mana fluctuates together or not at all, remember?’ She reached out with a trembling hand. And Fistrick caught it before it could reach his cheek, frowning down at the oily sheen of her fingers poking through the gaps between his own.

‘But babe, you were always complaining about your parents, remember? You said they were a real drag and wish they knew what a real tragedy was. Well, I’m about to grant your wish.’

Sunny’s eyes widened in horror.

‘Get away from him!’ Ben called out, his hand finally slamming down on his watch. He reached out through the flare of green light with the talons of Kickin Hawk, swiping through the air seconds too late as Fistrick whirled to one side, slamming Sunny inside the nearest orange tube. With horror, Ben realised that the shimmer of light decorating the curve in it’s surface and the distant glare of dim white from the lights overhead, meant that the glass or plastic-looking cover he’d taken for granted was in fact not any kind of casing at all; the Amber Ogia had just taken on a form that made it into a more shiny version of flypaper. It was, in some way, just a more crystalline-looking and much more gloopy version of the resin used to build Rook’s family table back on Revonnah.  And that same gloopiness came into play rapidly enough, Sunny’s arms and legs, and even the flaring ends of her hair, sinking into the golden softness with a slick squelching that reminded him of mud.

‘Ew, ew, ew!’

Given that she was actually struggling and not launching mana projectiles everywhere, Ben figured that this batch of processed Amber Ogia had some sort of magic-damping effect or...something.

‘What the heck, Fistrick?’ he demanded, attempting to swipe the guy’s feet out from under him.

But Fiskrick danced back in that stupid, tippy-toe dance move he’d been forced to watch Rook parade around with for two weeks back when he’d been ‘broified’ and so he growled and promptly twisted himself up into a position that managed to deliver a harsh uppercut into Fistrick’s torso. Fistrick stumbled back and Ben leapt forwards, rapidly dancing out a quick succession of kicks against the hard muscles that curved out from beneath the guy’s tank top.

Fistrick went flying back and Ben turned to try and yank Sunny out by her shoulders. ‘Urgh...what crazy scientist did you team up with to get this stuff made?’

Fistrick chuckled, his hand snidely sliding onto his trouser pocket to press a tiny remote control he’d stashed away there. ‘I know a guy.’

A bright beam of orange light exploded from out of the side of the space station, shredding through space to reach Anodyne. Sunny screamed and Ben turned round, dropping her shoulders in shock as he ran forward. But even through the dizzying spill of light, Anodyne didn’t explode into rocky chunks or turn into a disintegrating swirl of ash. No, it floundered as though it’s outlines, even its rings, were lost inside the wavy glass of a fairground mirror. Distorting, running like liquid into a blend of brown and red rainbows, it became like a single oily spill of petrol in space as flares of pink jolted over its fluctuating surface, much like the jump and crackle of electricity – and then the light disappeared. And Anodyne was gone.

Sunny blinked, gormless, at the twinkle of stars outside the large window. ‘ _No._ ’ It came out like a small, soft cough.

‘You were only half-right,’ said Fiskrick seriously and Ben forced himself to stop mid-punch, aware that this info was important. And also because the blend of Amber Ogia stacked into the walls was now casting a pinkish-amber hue, frissons of pink sparks leaping out within each one to briefly form the flicker of a ghost’s expression before it vanished. They left mask-like imprints within the resin, hand-casts and outlines of elbows and legs erupting like preserved flowers stems inside before they flickered away again, only to return seconds later to form new imprints. And so on, repeating the pattern in a matter of seconds, disappearing and reappearing, like a ghost caught between the veil of life and death. 

‘Anodyne is like one of those gas giants, bro, no solid earth, just fluid energy constantly rolling through and underneath. And it’s a hell of a lot easier to pull in all that energy and whatever being that happens to be floating overhead with a modified tractor beam, one that converts energy directly into these pods. Or so this guy I know told me.’

‘Put them back,’ Ben demanded. ‘Right now. You get one chance. Put them back. Every Anodite  you’re storing like a  Duracell battery, release them, back the way they were. Anodyne too, while you’re at it.’ It was at that point though, that the time-out beeping from the Omnitrix rang out like a death knell and Ben reverted back into human form with a flash of light.

Fistrick’s only response though was to grin at him in a predatory fashion. ‘You sure, bro?’

‘Ricky!’ But Sunny was flailing, her eyes wide and grief-stricken and as Ben watched, part of her hair managed to pull away from the sticky resin with a monumental effort. ‘Please, if you ever loved me...’

‘Love?’ Fistrick shrugged at her, a rueful smile on his face. ‘Sorry baby, ain’t got no time for love. I did like you and it was kinda fun having you around. But I think in the end, you were just too clingy. We might have lasted longer if you weren’t.’

If Sunny had still been wearing her human skin her face would have been bleached with the sort of whiteness that meant her blood was busy running away from her veins.

‘That’s pretty messed up, Fistrick,’ Ben said. And alien or not, he was still a hero. So he lunged forward, trying not to wince in preparation for the blow that was sure to fall. And fall it did, the thump of Fistrick’s fist resounding against his ribcage. But Ben was a stubborn thing, it was how he always won, and so as he fell away, both hands raced up to grab Fistrick’s forearm. He hung tightly, bracing for the next punch, but before it could land he hooked his nails into the skin in a clear parody of what Sunny had done to him minutes before. And then both his hands were busy twisting away from each other as though suddenly caught in opposing currents. 

It was tough; Fistrick was tough. His muscles felt like knotted ropes, the ones made stiff by racing through the rigging of a ship and touching the tang of the salt-air, half-baked by the resulting crustiness. But Ben didn’t stop twisting and half- stupefied, Fistrick’s palm fell open at the quick tug of the playground-style Chinese burn.

Ben let go instantly, half-twisting with the motion so that he barely avoided Fistrick’s incoming punch, all so his fingers could seize hold of the gravity-bound remote. He only had seconds to glance it over, to see that there was no reverse switch and then furious, he thrust it away because he hated receiving pain for nothing. He landed on the ground but even before that his hand was moving, switching gears as it slammed down towards the glow of the watch. Only to stop as Fistrick’s foot crushed down upon it, smashing what felt like every bone beneath the studded heel. Ben felt his cry pour out of him, a hurl of sound that erupted with the same ferocity that now flooded his hand with pain.

This was...this was...

‘BEN!’ Sunny was struggling, calling for him with a voice that sounded so much like Gwen that it hurt.

Fistrick muttered something which had a ‘bro’ in it but Ben wasn’t concentrating. Light was flickering in front of him in strange spirals like the pattern of DNA printed across the old pages of his biology textbooks, the stringed beads artfully arranged like a single column inside an abacus. When was the last time he had seen one of those things anyway? He could picture Rook playing with something like it as a child, cheerfully flicking the beads to and fro along the wire as his tail curled around the wooden frame. It made for a cute picture.

Ben smiled, ignoring the roar of blood in his ears, the way it flickered into a beat, a buzz, a spark. There was no rhythm to energy, only flow. Disjointed waves, not repetitive beats, not unless he wanted there to be.

This was...this was... _energising._

Ben’s eyes closed. Then opened. And then there was a surge of pink.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Annnd_ we went there. What an original plot twist.
> 
> Also the Ben 10 wiki has some interesting notes on the Amber Ogia entry. Apparently people have attempted to cultivate it as a crop on special planets designed primarily for the task, but it always turns out sickly and inferior to the original. And no one's ever figured out why. Which is why Ben's so incredulous at the idea of Sunny and Fistrick managing to 'copy' it. I imagine Rook's brought up the subject enough times for the info to land inside Ben's brain, whether he wants it there or not.
> 
> But honestly there's a lot of interesting tidbits that end up on that site that will probably never really be explored or touched upon again within the show's canon. Or whatever future series happen to come out. It's good stuff for people who attempt to write chaptered fanfiction to stumble across though. I trawl through it sometimes when I have writer's block.
> 
> Just...stay away from the episode write-ups. Some of them are written fairly...clumsily.


	7. Lover, gleam and glow, for your kiss is like poison to me

 

 

‘I searched everywhere,’ Rook told Shar. He rubbed a tired hand over his face, feeling his muscles protest as he scrunched his face up beneath the closeted warmth his fingers provided. Not for an instance did he feel as though he could relax. ‘But I found nothing. No tachyon emissions, no DNA, not even a trace of hair.’

And even though part of her was still weighed down with bandages, Shar shifted herself upright, using the empty tea-tray wedged under her arm as leverage. She winced, her brow curling in thought, and despite himself, Rook was amused to see the meticulous way she had arranged all her empty plates next to her dresser.

‘You have asked Gwen for a mana reading, yes? You informed me once that she had dowsing abilities.’

Rook grimaced. ‘Disturbingly enough, once we brought her to Anodyne she started shaking and shortly afterwards, collapsed. She has been in a fevered state ever since.’

‘Could Alien X have done something?’ Shar asked. ‘Transforming a planet into a star...that ought to have been an easy feat for one such as him.’

Rook growled slightly, fingers wrenching themselves into his knees as he stared anywhere but at Shar. ‘I will not believe it. Ben has done stupid, foolish things, some of great magnitude, yes. But he would never cast a species and its planet to extinction, not even as a last resort.’

There was a pause. And then from out of the corner of his vision, Shar’s hand crept down to offer his own solace with a touch.

‘I am not suggesting that he acted out of ill intent,’ she said softly. ‘But in the haze of a fight, things get clouded. If I had the power of the Omnitrix, I am sure I would end up acting rashly at times, just as your partner would.’

‘You do not know Ben the way I do,’ Rook said stiffly. But his fist unfurled slightly, fingers falling away from the kneecap that they were attempting to grind to dust, as hers pushed down against his knuckles with a much lighter touch.

‘I should hope not,’ she said dryly. ‘But if we wish to find out what has happened, perhaps we should seek out the aid of someone familiar enough with mana to manipulate it, while not being directly one with it in the same way an energy being such as Gwendolyn is.’

It was sound advice. But Rook grimaced to hear it all the same.

 

\-------------------------- 

 

Rook trod over the campus of Gwen’s university, ignoring any curious stares and the quick silver flashes of camera phones going off in his general vicinity. He checked the janitor’s closet, the washroom, and even the dustier corners of the library. But Bezel was nowhere to be found.

He snorted. Of course. Like Ben said, it would be ‘too easy,’ would it not?

So then he sought out Hex’s office. Only to find Charmcaster raised to her tiptoes on his desk, her hands scrabbling inside a jar moulded into the shape of a skull. She froze, a bunch of Hex's papers creasing beneath her booted foot as she fumbled with the very top of a black bookcase, the crested outer edges giving off the vague impression of a bat's wing, or at least the webbed membrane of one.

They both stared at each other for a moment.

Then she wrinkled her nose. ‘Oh, it’s the tall, blue, furry one. Go away.’

She turned back to her scuffling, her trademark bag falling round the slant of her hip and crashing into a rather ragged-looking tome that wobbled forwards, out of place. And almost accidentally, as though gravity was pulling at it, the zippered mouth fell open, a long, lazy green streamer rolling out of its mouth in the shape of a tongue.

Rook attempted to ignore this. ‘My _name_ is Rook,’ he informed her tensely and dimly, he realised he had yet to release the door handle. He carefully un-clenched his fingers. ‘Why do you not just levitate?'

Charmcaster snorted. ‘It would interfere with the muddled array of protection spells my dear old Uncle set up in here. Levitate? Ha! Might as well put a beacon on my head.’

Rook began reaching up for his Proto-tool delicately. ‘I see. What is worth liberating from that jar then?’

‘A cookie, of course,’ Charmcaster answered as though it was obvious. Then, without turning her head, her free hand swiveled round to point at Rook as white light burst from her outstretched fingers. ‘Reptilius bind!’

A snake burst into existence, promptly wrapping itself round his arms and fastening them to his sides. He struggled but it’s muscles simply tightened, bunching together into the squeeze of a python.

‘That does not look like a cookie jar,’ Rook somehow found the strength to inform Charmcaster snidely, recalling the various flowered arrays that decorated the kitchen of Mrs Tennyson and the orange lidded pots that trailed from the ceiling on knotted vine stems within his Mother's own. He jumped a little as the jawbone on the  jar skull Charmcaster’s fingers were rooting inside seemed to flex, flurries of plaster escaping from its mouth at the motion. ‘Or at least,’ he amended, ‘it is not your typical non-magical one.’

But Charmcaster wasn’t listening.

‘Almost...ah-ha!’

She brightened visibly, her fingers crawling away from the jar with what looked to be a brown crumbly chuck of... _something_  ensnared in their grasp. ‘Perfect! Now,’ she added, twirling round, ‘tell me why you’re nosing around.’

Rook grimaced. He had not had been having a good record with fights against mana-wielding females of late.

‘I was seeking out the aid of someone who is familiar with mana,’ he explained gratingly. ‘Anodyne; you have heard of it, yes? The homeworld of the Anodites? It has been transformed into a small, burning star. It is not big enough to burn the way a real star should, not without collapsing into a dwarf, and yet burn it does. And of the Anodites and...other people of interest, there is not a trace.’

‘This sounds like a Gwen problem,’ Charmcaster said loftily, stuffing the ill-named cookie up her sleeve; Rook could see no hidden pockets sewn into the seams and given how loosely it fell open he could only assume that she was using magic to tuck it away and out of sight. ‘I’m surprised she isn’t biting at the bit to take up the cause.’ She hesitated, then narrowed her eyes at him. ‘Unless...she can’t?’

Rook winced, his mind racing to come up with a lie but Charmcaster was already leaning forward, an excited gleam in her eye. ‘She isn’t well, is she? Oh, poor Gwennie, all out of commission...perhaps I should take a look at the problem, after all. That’ll really put her nose out of joint.’

...How come Ben was always better at ‘making stuff up’ in these situations than he was?

And it was at that precise moment of Rook’s internal recrimination, that the window broke open and Shar came flying through, a piece of thin twine in her hands. Rook blinked as the glass fell out around her like a shattered halo and then the twine was leaving his sister’s still-working hand, emerging into a long loop, tightened at the end with a knot. Though made slightly awkward with her bandages strapped to her side, Shar managed to clatter over Hex’s upturned chair and throw the make-shift lasso over Charmcaster’s head with a sly twist of her wrist. The whole thing took less than a second and Rook strained forward as Charmcaster’s mouth opened incredulously, spitting out word after word; yet each spell these gave life to, fizzled out with an angry flare of white, like a candle flame ground into dust.

There was, Rook thought, a karmic twist here, given how similarly to his own arms Charmcaster’s were now bound; but then Shar leant against his shoulder and scraped the edge of the lasso against the snake. It shivered against the contact and then fell away into nothingness.

‘Where did that come from?’ Rook asked suitably impressed.

‘It was woven from the hair of one of Zs’skar’s nieces according to the information that strange Professor Hokestar gave me,’ his sister answered flippantly. ‘Also, and he was quite insistent about this, it has apparently been blessed by a Geochelone Aerio sage, one of which is said to have a certain immunity to mana; but I was not sure if this would render it immune to magic until now.’

Rook sighed.

She elbowed him. ‘Do not be like that! To take chances is what a Plumber must be prepared to do on the field of battle.’

Rook stared at her, taking note of her bandages and the way tremors rang through the fur immediately surrounding them, causing it to ruffle and spike. In fact, her whole body was now shaking, torn by the strain of holding Charmcaster steady in the lasso by the grip of her muscles alone. So with a single step, he closed both his hands over the rope she had threaded around her left wrist and yanked Charmcaster down off the desk in one firm tug.

‘Yes,’ he said grimly, ‘I suppose we Plumbers must do, at that.’

 

\-------------------------- 

 

‘What do you suppose will happen when I cannot use any of my spells to help with your little problem because of the rope binding me?’ Charmcaster asked dangerously.

She was sitting bundled in the back of the Proto-truck, the lasso now hooked round her arms more thoroughly, even dipping down to twist round her ankles a few times for good measure.

Shar bristled in front of her, despite the fact that she still had to lean on the wall slightly for support. ‘You will help us _sorceress_ , otherwise we shall dump you in the Null Void.’ She tapped a finger against the Null-Void projector set against her hip in threat.

Charmcaster snorted. ‘I am, as you say, a ‘sorceress’ she said, injecting an imitation of the scorn Shar had used to lavish the title with moments before. ‘So what makes you think I won’t find my way out with a spell or two?’

‘With a spell or two, yes,’ Rook said. ‘However without your bag, it will possibly require a great deal more effort.’ He dangled it loosely from his side, eyes fixed on the window in front. ‘And due to your current circumstances, you are running on 'empty' as I believe Ben would say. Trust us: at the first sign of trouble we will not hesitate to send your bag through  to the Null Void first; to arrive at a different set of coordinates that the ones we will send you to.’

Charmcaster let out a growl. And Shar leaned forward to stare at her more closely.

‘Are you sure you are human? Your hair is white; it should not turn that colour until you are much older.’

Charmcaster let out a short scream of rage and Shar leant back, wide-eyed.

‘Are humans related to howler monkeys?’ she asked her brother in a whispered aside.

Rook smiled but his heart wasn’t in it. ‘Not closely enough to excuse their own behaviour.’ He gave her a quick glance, eyes narrowing as she attempted to hide her wince, just before stumbling and grabbing hold of the headrest behind him as he used the wheel to veer to the left as gently as he could. ‘I should have left you in the hospital.’

‘I would have gone crazy,’ muttered Shar. ‘Besides I have had plenty of rest these last few days. And I feel you should not be left alone to deal with this.’ She closed her hand over his shoulder.

‘Aw, family, ain’t it _swell,_ ’ Charmcaster muttered with a vicious bite to her voice. She shoved her cheek up against the nearest seat moodily, almost like she wanted to squash it entirely.

Rook frowned, unsure if he should point out the fact that Hex was actually willing to put forth the effort of getting to know her all over again. Or at least that was what Gwen told him. A part of him wondered if deep down Charmcaster had always resented her uncle for being the brother to survive rather than her father, Spellbinder. But he had no time to ponder over this further. Because they had arrived, stopping to hover near a bright, twisting orb of yellow, as a pink hue danced merrily over the surface and rose in swirls of heat that caught and crackled their way up into a cascade of rising flames. it was as though tongues of fire were licking across the darkness of space.

Charmcaster frowned and leaned forward. ‘Oh,’ she said, eyes narrowed like a stalking cat. ‘That is odd.’ Abruptly, she hobbled to her feet and, exchanging a brief look with each other, Rook and his sister leaned over to carefully untangle the rope from her limbs. ‘There’s a bunch of energy all swirling together, not quite mystic, it’s like...’ Charmcaster frowned in thought and passed her hand in front of her face slowly as though she was waving to herself. Swirls of faint pink light glimmered at the end of her nails, before sparkling out into thinly veiled trails of glitter.

‘How to explain to a bunch of people with even less knowledge than Gwen?  Well, let’s say you were an idiot and mixed together a bunch of ingredients into a potion without accounting for the way their properties could clash together, especially if you carelessly picked some of the herbs out of season. Then you would get a simmering mess, barely held together by whatever liquid you first put to the boil before you popped the first ingredient in.’ She frowned. ‘Whatever’s holding those energy signatures together, it’s tenuous. Barely keeping itself in check.’

She frowned even harder, stepping forward until her nose was almost grinding against the glass. ‘Urgh, but the psychic energy it’s beaming out...it’s giving me a headache just looking at it.’ She muttered something quietly to herself, threads of power running through her voice and charging the small atmosphere inside the Proto-truck with a buzz. Rook thought he made out the word ‘lumpus’ a few times and reflected that the spells he heard recited in real life were really nothing like that Harry Potter series Gwen was always encouraging him to read. ‘It’s coiled up, but I might be able to force a connection...’

Rook’s ears pricked up. ‘Force?’ he asked suspiciously, ‘that does not sound very healt-’

As it turned out, he was right and Charmcaster broke off from tracing some sort of symbol in mid air in surprise as the air around them darkened. It deepened, becoming doused in a foggy pink and Rook let out a breath, seeing it emerge in a stain of twinkling blue like a CGI effect.

‘Wow,’ said Charmcaster, her breath coming out in a surge of purple. ‘I feel like a dragon again.’

‘Again?’ asked Shar warily, orange rushing from each swell of air that escaped her lungs.

‘But I guess in the end I can relate better to that time I got high. Several times actually. You collect one set of magic mushrooms and you collect them all.’

That was not even remotely true, Rook thought. But then he staggered to the side, his sister falling into his side. For that is when the voices started.

 

_-Oh no, oh stars, oh Anodyne, is this punishment, is this sin-_

_-I’m forgetting what’s it’s like to have my own head, it was round I think-_

_-I never thought I’d miss having fingers-_

_-Mother, where are y-_

_-this is what we get for meddling with creatures who’ve barely raised themselves out of the muck, look, there’s more of them circling our...us!-_

_-Filth-_

_-I’ll never be an individual again, I never thought I’d miss it this mu-_

_-oh stars, it hurts-_

_-where’s my energy-bearer, where’s my nestling-spark, where’s the collector of my hear-_

_-Mummy, Daddy, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just wanted more-_

_-TOO MUCH-_

 

 _Yes,_ Rook thought, or perhaps simply took away from it, _it was_. Shar was shaking him slightly, looking confused, but Charmcaster’s hand fastened over her wrist, loosening his sister's fingers from the roll of his shoulder with a firm grip.

‘There’s a thread of connection between you and the web above.’

Rook half-heard her, half lip-read; the voices were pressing in on him making it difficult, but Charmcaster took a firm grip of his chin, nails digging in, before her eyes flashed white and suddenly thinking became a little easier.

‘Whatever’s making it, is connected to your mana, or finds it familiar enough to make a connection. Or perhaps it simply wants to drain you of your life-force. But hey, I’m not an Anodite here and we’re going a little outside my comfort zone. I can try and booster the connection, make it stronger. But I also might end up frying your brain.’

Shar let out a little frightened gasp at that. ‘Blonko-’

Rook’s fingers ground down into the floor. Whatever happened here had involved Ben.

‘Do it,’ he growled out. And Charmcaster only smiled, her eyes glowing even fiercer than before.

‘Aperire animo,’ she murmured.

For one horrifying second all the voices rose up into a shout, a scream. And then there was blissful quiet.

Rook started. Stared. And looked between Charmcaster and his sister. They both stared back at him, but nothing in their eyes flickered to follow him, and the shine of light over their frozen bodies remained the same no matter how he turned and twisted his shadow over them. It was odd, to see the corresponding darkness fall away from him, to watch it seep out and away the moment it attempted to rest over their skin and fur.

‘You’re the only one who isn’t shouting.’

Rook spun. And there, crouched over the wheel, elbows resting over the tops of the handles like they were surfaces specially designed for him to rest on, leant a boy. His skin glowed with the same silky darkness as a fully-formed Anodite’s and his hair fell away from his forehead in short tendrils of curling white. But even though his eyes were hollow and blank, without even a hint of green to soften them, Rook still recognised the voice rolling out of the mouth below, even now that it was dappled by a resonance that sounded as though a microphone had blended in with the vocal cords. And that posture, the casual slump-forward, it was all hopelessly-

‘Ben,’ he said, his voice a rough rasp, initially braced for any sort of pain, but instead, now it could soften, rush, break into relief – ‘Ben,’ he said again louder, eagerness forcing the syllables to explode into a gleeful sound and then all of him was rushing forward to grab this strange new creature that his boyfriend had become.

But Ben leant back, all of him tense with alarm and Rook stopped, the skin of the shoulders beneath his hand as cold as metal. A part of him wanted to scoop Ben up, make him warm even with the pitiful shelter of his fur and armour. Another part, the curious, detective part, wanted, no, _needed_ to work out this new mystery.

‘The Omnitrix can only store DNA, of which Anodites have none,’ he said carefully. ‘So how are you now one of them? And where are the others of this species?’

Ben grinned. But even without the individual cracks of white that would mark out human molars and incisors, it still looked like a sharp and frightening thing. ‘Others? You mean the voices? I...guess I pulled them in.’

‘In? Ben, please try to make sense to me.’

Ben laughed, hand reached up to rub against hair which immediately skated away from his fingers as though it had a life of its own. ‘There was...I remember being smaller. And frightened. My hand was tiny and broken, filled with splintered calcium. A boot landed on it. And I couldn’t use this word, this Omnitrix. It sounds important.’

Rook’s fingers tighten on Ben’s shoulder, as each word, each un-Ben-like phrase came tumbling out.

‘There was a lot of orange. Against the walls, all shiny and a girl...shiny...shimmery...’

‘Sunny,’ Rook said gently.

Ben brightened; he could tell by the quick, upward curve under the bulge of his eyes – the Anodite equivalent of forming laughter lines. ‘Yes! She was stuck! And everyone, these voices, the energy that held them, it was all stuck in the orange too. But they didn’t have bodies they were stuck as the voices and the energy and they were screaming, I started to hear them and I-’

He frowned. ‘I felt it all rushing out and then I was here and I wanted to set them free, but I didn’t know how, so I sent it all back, into the space where it was before, but it didn’t fit, it was too different now, converted into light and heat and all I could do was keep it swirling and moving, because if I let it stop I wasn’t sure if the voices would stop and if they did that would be...’ he trailed off and looked away. ‘So sad...’

Rook’s thumbs stroked down over the part of Ben’s chest that should dip down and fall away into the slide of collar bones, but instead refused to shudder out into the vulnerable softness of skin. It was hard, chiselled, the structure humanoid, yes, but missing the persuasive blemishes that marked out Ben as vulnerable, malleable to harm. With a start, Rook realised that he had been forced into a position Kevin had been made to take before, the humanity of his lover a mere free-fall away into oblivion. Unsettled, he tightened his grip.

Ben laughed. ‘Do you want to hurt me? This is a different kind of pain than what the voices give me.’

‘No,’ Rook whispered. ‘That is the last thing I wish to do. What I wish is for you to return to me, human, as you were before.’

Ben gave what looked to be a pout. But without the blend of his lips, the nubs emerging from his skin like dark hooks were indistinguishable from the rest of him. It made something inside Rook shudder and grimly he drew Ben into his arms properly, ignoring the chill of his Anodite skin.

‘But I’m so...big now. Better than the Way-Big big. I think. Huh, I remember that name. And I can do-’

‘You cannot be the greatest hero in the universe anymore,’ Rook interrupted harshly, his fingers tracing the cool curves of Ben’s back. It felt wrong, not to feel the knobs of bone nestling beneath, or find the patch of New Jersey shaped skin to scrape beneath his dulled-down claws. ‘You cannot be anyone’s hero if you do not first save yourself. And properly help all those people you are still trying to save now.’ He leant back. ‘I do not know if this is some latent ancestry from your Grandmother at work in you now, or whether Anodyne has worked its own separate magic where there should be none. But you need to let it go. Listen to the voices, no, don’t just listen, ask. They will have experience converting and transforming energy. Perhaps they can guide you.’

Ben wobbled a little in his arms, almost a shake. And bravely, Rook’s reached up to grab a fistful of that hair that whipped across his palms like fire. But there was no flare of pain. Only an odd burn that felt like a mixture of salt and ice.

‘Please,’ he said. ‘For me, if not yourself. You will be saving yet another person if you do so.’

Ben nodded. Then tentatively he reached up and pressed his lips to Rook. And Rook...well. Rook had never asked Kevin what it was like to kiss Gwendolyn when she was in her Anodite form. He had never dared. Plus, there was the fact that the thought of kissing Gwendolyn made him feel weird. She was a perfectly lovely young woman just...not his type. At all.

But oh, now he would definitely never ask. Ever.

Sparks and electricity flew into his mouth with a cold intensity that felt like biting into ice-cream and he dove forward, more out of grace than any real pleasure. There was no warmth here, only desperation. But if Ben needed him to be an anchor, than he would gladly hold himself steady.

But it was hard. For there was no easy familiarity here, no cheeky scrape of tongue to invade his mouth and tangle with his own, and no teeth to clink against the bones in his jaw. It was all empty of the usual teasing spirit Ben used to play with him, whether it was to draw back and lick the black dip of his mouth-outline with his own tongue or simply to press warm breath against the tiny gaps between his teeth. Now there was just a passionate kind of selfishness in the way Ben moved, his body pressed against Rook’s not for sport or pleasure, but just as an opposing weight.

Ben shuddered and moved away. ‘If my mind’s clearer afterwards I’ll probably want to make this up to you.’

Rook brushed the hair over his forehead into a fringe, flattening it as best as he could. ‘If you come back with actual breath in your mouth, that will be more than enough for me.’ He leaned forward and stroked his cheek. ‘Come on, Ben. It is hero time.’

And Ben shuddered one last time before letting out a wavering, ‘ _alright_.’

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Told you shit would hit the fan. There are plenty of other stories out there of Ben awakening into his Anodite powers and having fun with them. But this isn't one of them.
> 
> Also, obligatory 'Tangled' reference in the chapter title.


	8. Reach my lungs, bury inside them with their constellations,

 

It was like a Disney movie. Rook had been forced to watch those things with Ben during the first few early months of their partnership, and in truth it had been no great hardship; but though the twinkling lights of animated spells being invoked was a pretty thing to watch unfold on screen, it still paled in comparison to what was happening through the window in front of him. The star was beginning to unravel, straining sparks rushing out into the blackness of space to dive away into glittering threads. These were roped through and around the dwindling gold disc, forced flat as though the separate palms of a god had slammed down together onto either side in a clap, before the ice-like rings of the former Anodyne suddenly sprung out into existence. And as though this were a signal, the star enclosed within started to burn down into a dull red, the yellow fading as the flames flickering around its edges coiled down into the ambient glow that Rook remembered seeing in a visual file once.

‘Wow.’ Shar was leaning forward, her free hand pressing against the window, nose just shy of touching the actual screen. ‘It is like watching magic.’

Rook smiled weakly. Any other time, and he would have torn himself away from the wheel in order to join her. ‘You are not wrong.’

‘Hmm.’

He bristled slightly; Charmcaster’s hands were resting on the back of his seat in that casual way humans sometimes had of grasping other’s personal space for themselves.

‘You say you saw Ben? As an Anodite?’

Rook breathed through his nose; he had been disoriented as time had snapped back into being, the feel of Ben vanishing from his arms and causing him to sway, his shadow rushing back to cover the movements of the two girls beside him as it should. Shar had quickly seized his elbow, shoving him back into the seat while Charmcaster chose to pat him on the head like he was a dog. Either way, the words had tripped out of his tongue and he had perhaps disclosed a little too much information to someone who had every reason not to know.

‘I will not repeat myself,’ he said firmly.

But Charmcaster cackled. ‘Oooh, this is classic! Gwen never gets to embrace her heritage and explore it fully, and yet the first time _Ben_ goes off to the planet she rejected, he turns super-Anodite, ascends to a higher dimension and converts it and all its inhabitants into some nexus of boiling, raging mana! It’s just too good!’

Rook narrowed his eyes and took a moment to tear his eyes away from the sight that so enthralled Shar.

‘How do you know-’

‘That Gwen turned down a one-way ticket to becoming a super-charged Anodite? Honestly you Plumbers and your computers. It’s like you think your fancy encryptions actually stand a chance against magic.’

Rook opened his mouth, but Shar had already whirled round, disapproval evident in the way she wrinkled her nose. ‘Plumber files are not for the consumption of the public! Especially not for those who hold criminal intent!’

Charmcaster waved a hand dismissively. ‘Oh, cry me a river!’

To which Shar’s nose wrinkled even further. ‘Such a thing is hardly possible,’ she said stiffly. ‘And even if it were, _I_ do not cry.’

Charmcaster blinked. Then leaned over further into Rook’s personal space, her hand pressed over her mouth as though to direct her voice straight into his ears. ‘Is she for real?’ Sadly however, the volume of her words remained unchanged and Shar bristled.

To which Rook could only sigh.

 

\-------------------------- 

 

_‘Feed-‘_

_‘Mana into gas, very straightforward-‘_

_‘See the atoms, how they bounce around? Make ‘em slow, cool fires down instantly-’_

It’s hard but Rook’s right. By opening up a dialogue and hesitantly pushing out questions into the midst of those voices, Ben got a response. Several.

 _‘Listen,’_ said one, ‘ _feel as I do. Push-’_

And Ben did. He saw light and swirls of energy, energy that was desperate to reform, to be as it was.

_‘You don’t have to try so hard. It will get easier, as we pull ourselves out of the either of your mind, of this invisible space you have carved out for ourselves. You’ve done well, Ben. Very well.’_

The voice was familiar, not warm, but heartbreaking gentle. It quivered in his mind, like a phone that needed to be picked up, a mobile with the vibration function set to its lowest setting. If he could he would have blinked.

‘Grandma?’

 _'Shh,’_ she said, but her voice wavered, as though she had to swallow before she spoke. _‘You’re doing just fine. You’re very nearly there.’_

There was something pressing on the corner of his mind, images of crafting mana into solid blocks, of weaving a small ball of light from ice dust collected from Anodyne’s rings. Ben tried not to shake as a laugh rang out, young and girlish, hands not his own cradling the distinct glimmer of a tiny star, more lamp than gas, as it floated into his memory.

 _Yes, like that,’_ cooed Verdona _. ‘Read my memory. And then read the energy out there. See where it wants to go. And I will help.’_

 _'Me too.’_ Another voice, subdued and sulky. _‘He’s not even a full Anodite, not like me. And I feel more like me, now that Anodyne’s back in the sky. I can help.’_

 _'Oh hush, you spoiled brat.’_ Verdona, Ben noted, sounded very, very huffy. _‘This is your fault!’_

_'Then let me fix it, Grandma!’_

_'And me!’_

_'And us!’_

_‘I don’t care, I just want my head back again...’_

Ben relaxed and let the voices thrum out of him, let them flow away, _pushing_ slightly as he watched arms and legs appear, spiralling out of the gloom. Then there was a jerk and he gasped, all of him suddenly solid and floating and Verdona _pushed_ at him, more mentally than physically, but it was enough to send him rearing out into visibility, against all the Anodites sprouting like starfish into the dark. Dimly, he could see the spacecraft hovering nearby, Rook’s face staring out at him from the gloom, open in astonishment.

He felt almost like grinning and winking in return only...only he could think, a lot more clearer than he had been able to before without all that energy swirling round and round holding him back. And... and he remembered.

 

_Fistrick had screamed. At first it might have been a bellow. But it had definitely emerged into a scream as the metal of the space-station melted away, the sudden influx of energy twisting and turning it into free-flowing atoms without any form to bind them together. Ben hadn’t cared. He had just felt the pressure lift briefly, a blinding sense of freedom before it had all cloistered in again and he had tried to grab hold of the screaming voices before they faded forever. What was one human scream amongst the multitude? Energy called to energy, and it, he, Fistrick was comprised of flesh, his mana locked away inside a different kind of cage._

**_Let him die._ ** _It had been Sunny, her voice cold and small before Ben had pulled her into him, but she had been fully formed in the way no one else had been, and, as the Amber Ogia was pulled from her thighs, as her fingers were whispered away from the realm of the physical, her hair swirled out and struck Fistrick in the face. And the force sent him flying out through shards of disintegrating metal, out into the cold, out into the black..._

 

Ben broke out of his thoughts, spun round dizzily. But there was no human body caught in the orbit of Anodyne. No Fistrick floating, lifeless and empty.

He spun to Verdona. But her eyes were cold.

‘It is just as well that his mana is not to be found here,’ she said. ‘There would not be a warm reception for him amongst any of us.’

Ben shuddered. He had crossed lines before, left enemies out in places where the odds of survivability was low. But he hadn’t even tried to ensure Fistrick’s safety this time. He stared down at his hands, at the purple glow of them. He felt cold, alien in a way he had never felt before, not even when he was Alien X, locked inside with what felt to be an entire galaxy separating him from Bellacious and Serena.

Verdona softened, and reached down to take his hands with hers.

‘Come,’ she said. ‘You need the touch of a spark warmer than the one you presently hold.’

 And with a flash they were inside the ship.

‘Ben!’

Ben felt arms wrap around him, arms that should be familiar and they were. But he felt nothing. No warmth, and the fur that had always tickled his skin now rasped against the surface of his Anodite form with a quality akin to an itch. There was no mana tucked inside its ends, no, all the really interesting stuff lay below the skin, the nerves, the beat of that heart, everything that kept it moving. How could he have never seen it before?

But Verdona’s hand tightened on his shoulder like a wrench refusing to let go.

‘It must be overwhelming,’ she said carefully and Ben frowned, reading a calculating air to her tone. ‘Even for one who transforms as freely as you do. There is no DNA to hold you steady, not this time.’

Rook drew back and Ben was surprised to feel a twinge when the other’s brow furrowed as he stared straight up into Verdona’s watchful gaze.

‘He is not in his original human form,’ the Revonnahgander said cautiously. ‘Mrs...’

He hesitated and Verdona smirked. Ben stared dully at the floor. Grandma and Grandpa had never married. And there had never been any record of her existing under a false name, so the idea of her having a surname...well, perhaps she didn’t have one. It was weird. Rook’s discomfort was...it wasn’t irritating and he had this distant recollection of laughing or smirking other times awkward occasions like this had happened, but now...he wasn’t sure what to do.

‘Verdona,’ Rook said, finally giving up, and frowning even further as she let out a chuckle. ‘Explain, if you will, what has happened to my lover.’

 _Lover._ Ben saw Charmcaster mouth the word over incredulously to Rook Shar, who glared back as though the girl had been swearing silently. Now there was a story that oddly enough, he didn’t care about. He might have done before, back when he was small and warm. But now?

He looked at them and saw that the sparks inside their bodies were small and dim, weighed down by all that breathing and blood and closeted away behind muscle tone that would wither and die as soon as the mana inside ceased. They could never swirl together with another being the way he and every Anodite on Anodyne had. Never give birth to a star or recreate a planet. Never be anything more than embers from a fire the universe was still stingy about delivering.

And yet, little as they were, they still shone vivaciously. Shar’s mana was small and warm and yellow, pulsing fiercely like a fragile heart inside her, while Charmcaster’s swirled, fierce and white, like a pale owl beating its wings in preparation for the dive for prey. Jagged streaks of purple burst across the space inside her frame, rendering it slightly bigger than Shar’s perhaps due to her aptitude for magic. But it looked uglier too, the mixture of colour putting him in mind of a book page ruined by water.

Rook’s though...it was still tiny to everything he had just experienced. But oh, it gleamed, warm and orange and nestled inside his chest and Ben felt the pull of it, wanting to twist the energy out and thread it through his own spark, joining them together like the weave of a basket. Softly glowing like a children’s nightlight and far from the burning mass of a star or the vibrant shower of a firework, it made him feel stronger just by looking at it.

‘Ben.’ Words were so small, so disconnected from pure thought, lacking the imagery to match, and yet the sound of his name made Ben flinch. And then Rook’s finger was under his chin, lifting it up so that the orange eyes above would hook him in. ‘Look me in the face.’

Ben didn’t have to crane his neck. For one thing he was floating slightly off the ground, stabilising the height difference between them. And for another, he had no bones to crack as his head soared back.

‘Sorry,’ he said, marveling at this need to apologise. Why should he? ‘I can see so much more now that I don’t have a thousand busybodies chattering in my ear. I finally get all this ‘spark’ stuff my grandma’s always mentioning.’ He shoved his hand against Rook’s chest teasingly and then felt sad when he felt no real corresponding flutter drifting up along his nerves – or whatever passed for them in this body. ‘Yours is tiny by the way.’

But he mourned the lack of energy transfer here. Mana couldn’t travel through skin and bone and sweat. If he wanted to experience a sexual spark he would probably need to wear some himself.

‘Thank you,’ said Rook coldly in a tone that meant he wasn’t sure what to make of Ben’s words in general. Then he fixed his eyes on Verdona. ‘As I said before, an explanation would be appreciated.’

Ben could feel Verdona hovering over his shoulder, but didn’t turn round.

‘I can only guess,’ she said. ‘I am not the first Anodite to have produced offspring with another species, you must understand. But it is so rare for the spark to manifest itself properly, that we don’t have a sure-fire way to test for it accurately. Gwen showed no sign of it when she was a baby – and look how she turned out.’

‘Maybe you should have taken her to Anodyne, back then,’ Ben murmured without thinking.

Verdona shot him a sharp look. ‘Yes, maybe. Anodites don’t have a symbiotic connection to our planet the way some creatures do. But Anodyne is still the place where the energy of our ancestors first formed, the place we gravitate to when we are feeling lost or homesick. And its mysteries are still something many of our mystics fail to understand. I suspect it has an energy of its own that is too great for us to understand, even if we can help to reform it when it is lost. And I daresay something about it tapped into you when we arrived here, woke up something that would have otherwise stayed dormant.’ She paused, the expression on her face transforming into something half-hopeful. ‘I wonder if Kenneth would react the same as you if we brought him here.’

Ben felt something stab at him. ‘No,’ he said, surprised to feel his voice come out strong and almost unfiltered by the Anodite resonance that had stained it before; it was more like a whisper passing through now, a gentle breeze running underneath. ‘He likes to keep his distance from this kinda stuff. He wants a normal life; that’s what he told me and Gwen.’

Verdona gave him a sly look, her hair flickering slightly. ‘I thought as much.’

‘I do not understand.’

Ben blinked and saw Shar step forward, all of her looking very unsure. Her eyes darted over to him, and there was a slight wince on her face, like he was too bright for her to look at; and then her gaze ran down the length of his arm and with a jolt, Ben realised that Rook’s fingers were digging into his wrist in a way that should have hurt. But he didn’t feel it; no what he really felt was the energy jumping inside Rook, lighting him up like a firecracker. And something in him flared out in response.

‘Hey Blonko,’ he crooned, cupping the other’s chin with his hand. His fingers looked like streaks of oil against that furry jaw and he missed it somehow, that sensation of softness dipping and gliding into every whorl and pore of his skin. ‘Why’re you so angry?’

But Blonko stared back at him, a muscle ticking in his jaw, as though he was unmoved by the usage of the name he had chosen for himself. Ben frowned.

And Shar coughed lightly. ‘Perhaps he feels as I do. For if you feel so strongly about Kenneth not becoming...what you are now’ – what an impolite evasion, Ben thought, like ‘Anodite’ was a dirty word for her -  ‘then why do you think it would have been better for your other cousin to arrive here when she was younger and not fully-formed and therefore unable to give proper consent?’

Ben tore his fingers away, feeling very much as though it was his turn to light up like a firecracker. ‘I...’ he gasped, only that was wrong, he didn’t need to gasp, but still something was pressing in on his chest and it made him sink to the floor, curling his knees beneath his hands. Rook let go of his wrist as he fell and Ben could feel the energy of him flare out slightly like a beacon or perhaps an alarm, before he crouched down over him, all of him hovering like an impromptu shield. But he didn’t touch him.

‘Wow,’ he heard Charmcaster say in the background, her voice alight with glee. ‘I’ve seen soap operas with less drama than this-OW!’

‘My apologies,’ said Shar stiffly, and there was a noise then, of material drawing back, or perhaps just an elbow un-creasing itself from the lining of Charmcaster’s gut.

In another time, place or date, Ben would have laughed. As it was, with his vision blocked off by the dark slide of Rook’s body, all he could do now was wonder, dimly, if Shar had used her good arm, or the heavily bandaged one to inflict the attack.

‘I never knew there was girl out there more prim and proper than Gwendolyn, but congratulations, I think you’re getting there,’ Charmcaster muttered. And Ben was vaguely surprised she didn’t follow up her statement with a threat or an attempted spell.

‘It’s alright.’ And there was Verdona, her smooth undulating energy running over him, smoothly settling over his shoulder in the shape of her hands. It felt like coming home. ‘There, there. Anodyne gave what was in you a boost, but your spark isn’t anywhere near the size of Gwen’s. You were only able to do what you did, because every other Anodite was unavailable and you had the fury of a torn apart planet running through your...’ she hesitated. ‘I want to say veins, to give you a familiar expression to hold onto, but that’s not really accurate, is it?’

‘Most unfitting for the situation at hand,’ Rook agreed, but his voice had a rumble to it, a low warning burr that made Ben twitch and remember the way a near-growl had rolled through that throat on multiple occasions, ones that were usually private and consisted of harsh arguments.

‘You are more human than you are Anodite,’ Verdona continued on breezily, as though Rook had not spoken. ‘Though it is probably hard to remember in your current condition. And if you remain in it much longer, you will forget it entirely. You will be incapable of wanting what Gwen wants; a more balanced existence.’

‘Then help him!’ Ben hurt at Rook’s tone and wasn’t that a novel feeling? Familiar, too. ‘Help him change back!’

There was a shift in the shadows above him, light pouring in through the gap Rook’s outstretched arms left open and an even more familiar whirl of noise, before Verdona’s voice cut in, low and quick. ‘Really, young man, do you think that weapon will do any good against something like me?’

‘Blonko...’ Shar voice’s floated out, whispered and unsure, like it could shatter into a million pieces and...

‘ _Oooh!_ ’ Okay, that was definitely Charmcaster. And she wasn’t whispering _at all._

Ben looked up, the slant of the Proto-Tool cutting a line against the light above. It seemed to hover there indecisively, a grey blur in his vision that refused to fall.

‘I have no real wish to harm you,’ Rook spoke quietly, ‘but I will confess that I have the urge to hurt something. More importantly, you have the skill and experience to help Ben retain his human form, something which I have now learnt seems to be dependent on time. And you have been wasting it...on exposition!’  The last two words came out in a near shout, and the Proto-Tool damn near shuddered in those blue hands stretched above.

Ben carefully raised himself to his feet, taking care not them detach from the floor, no matter how easy it would be.

‘You WILL help him become as he was and you WILL do it now, without wasting any more of our...’

Ben tuned him out. The urge to float was overpowering, compelling, but Ben fought against it, almost stumbling forward on legs that suddenly felt as shaky as a newborn colt’s.

‘Roook,’ he whined, before he threw himself forward, fingers tugging on clumps of fur as his arms soared up and attempted to hook their way round Rook’s neck. It took a small jump to reach the necessary height and an almost inhuman amount of willpower to squash down the urge to remain in the air there, but he let the artificial gravity pull at him, yanking him down. He hung there, like a puppy or kitten hanging from its mother’s mouth and for a moment, the air was filled not with his floating Anodite form, but the sound of Charmcaster’s laughter.

‘Ben?’ The Proto-Tool didn’t clatter to the ground and Rook’s arms didn’t fall round him the way they would have done if they were living through a scene in one of Gwen’s favourite movies, but the Revonnahgander didn’t try to shake him off either.

‘Hey,’ Ben managed, ‘tell me what’s it like to play soccer? And eat chilli-fires? ‘Cos Grandma’s right. I’m having trouble remembering.’

‘This really isn’t the time...’

‘No!’ A new voice cut in, sounding extraordinarily stroppy. ‘Now’s exactly the time!’

Ben felt his mouth quirk into a tired smile. ‘Hey stranger.’

Sunny’s energy seemed to spill into the spacecraft in a heat-wave; nobody else could feel it but him and Verdona, Ben was sure, but he still felt Rook tense slightly beneath his grip. It near-on sizzled, angry and red and determined in a way he recognised from feeling the stifling air in Gwen’s room as she slaved over multiple papers.

‘Hiya,’ said Sunny, now sounding uncharacteristically shyer. Then her voice perked up. ‘Oooh, so this is him, huh? The boyfriend?’

The boyfriend. Not your boyfriend. Like it was an honorary title.

‘Ben, what exactly have you been saying to her?’ Rook whispered urgently, and Ben hid his face against his chest. One good thing about Anodite form was that there was no physical muscle strain to contend with – no, wait, that was bad right? He shouldn’t be thinking like that, right? Not if he wanted to get better.

‘Rule one that you learn on Anodyne when you’re, like, a baby is to trust your intuition,’ Sunny chattered on. ‘You can’t shape mana without it. So stop playing the lame-o part of a space cop, quit threatening my Grandma and listen to your boyfriend! Honestly, if you’re in love this should be easy! He wants to remember being human so he can shape his mana to match it, so tell him, do it.’

Ben could picture Rook’s eyes widening in realisation, but with his face still hidden, all he could feel was a flicker in the mana of the body he was attached to. Then one of Rook’s arms folded round him, the other slid the Proto-Tool away, and then both arms were suddenly holding him, and Ben felt his feet slide back against the ground as Rook lowered them both down. And then they were on the floor, his legs sliding out over and away from Rook’s lap as the long legs curled and crossed beneath him.

‘Wouldn’t a chair be more comfortable?’ Ben asked sardonically. And oh good, he remembered chairs, what it was like to sink into a sofa, soft with plumped up cushions but...air was so much better, it coiled round limbs and parted to let them slip through whatever sky you wished for and...and...

‘I am most comfortable where you are presently,’ Rook said steadily, and Ben wanted to snort because of course Rook would sound all romantic without meaning to. ‘But I will be more comfortable when I can feel your warmth again and hear you actually breathe.’ He hesitated.

‘That’s right,’ Ben encouraged. ‘Less fact, more feeling. Don’t get hung up the science.’

‘Alright,’ said Rook carefully, ‘I may not know what it is like to be human and to not have fur, but our bodies have similar shapes and so have similar properties’ –  he took a breath and then began to warm to his subject. ‘-So I can tell you that drinking a smoothie too fast will result in brain-freeze. And it will feel like all of you has stopped, hurt by the snowball that suddenly fills the entirety of your skull...and that a soccer ball, when it hits your foot or your hand, leaves a stinging pain across the flesh it touches. It feels sharp like a sting, bounces right across with the same force that you feel hitting the water after a mistimed dive. It shakes your bones, makes them thud, even though they have probably not moved.’

Ben let Rook’s voice pour over him, let the memories come rolling in with the words, that sharp twist of an ankle when he was eight and kicked the ball the wrong way, that time he first tasted a smoothie and found it gross, not because of the taste, but because it made his brain feel like an ice-cold rock...and slowly, slowly, he peeled the energy from his muscles, forced them to squeeze around and into the coils of blood that pumped round his system, that flushed into as deep and steady a pulse as Rook’s voice was describing.

‘...but when you are excited, when I see you enthralled by the blinking lights and loud noises of your video games, it flitters like a small bird. It is almost like rain, how fast the beat falls.’

‘Mmm,’ Ben sighed, letting him sink deeper into Rook’s arms, to feel heavier, too heavy to float, the bones and muscles weighing him down. He could remember the slide and feel of them, knocking down his centre, pouring into him as dark as water. ‘You should be a poet.’

Rook chuckled and then his hand was scraping through the wavy tendrils of white adorning Ben’s head. ‘No. I am a Plumber. And you are a superhero. A famous one, who gets equal parts adored and criticised. Remember that? The crowds? The autograph signings?’

Ben could. And the thrum of energy that went with it, all those smiles, as bright and gleaming as the accompanying camera flashes. 

‘No!’ Sunny broke in sounding panicky, ‘keep it all nice and romantic, like you were before! It _flowed_. And don’t bring other people into it! You’ll ruin it!’

‘Oh my actual God,’ Charmcaster muttered.

‘Or Brallada,’ Shar added from beside her, sounding equally as disturbed.

Rook sighed. ‘Fine. Remember your hair? If it is anything like mine, not my fur, it feels pleasant when others shape it with their hands. Like a hug, only more intimate. And I remember yours being a lot softer than this.’

Ben remembered too, he did. He closed his eyes.

‘It didn’t swim around my hands like it does now. I could make it rise as I wish, but it was rebellious too; it is not quite right to talk as though it possessed a sentience of its own but it sometimes felt like that, with the way it bounced beneath my palm and how it would disobey any effort to make it lie flat for an extended period of time.’

Ben breathed, just listening. And no sooner than he had exhaled, Rook gasped, though the sound came out more relieved than shocked.  

So it was, with a little alarm and now feeling abruptly warm, that Ben opened his eyes. Only to see wavy lines of brown drip down over his eyes, parted haphazardly by Rook’s fingers that combed through and fell down to settle at his cheek.  And Ben winced as lightning sparked at the touch, electricity shivering down into his skin to make his heart shudder out a discordant stutter in the rhythm that had barely started to beat.

‘There you are,’ Rook said softly, reading the astonishment in Ben’s eyes correctly. And then he smiled, wild and bright, and the only orange Ben could now manage to see in him was the eager glaze of his eyes above.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stupid, sappy romance. For stupid, sappy characters.
> 
> But did I have fun writing this chapter? Oh boy, did I have fun. Why can't all chapters be this fun?


	9. Which you scatter with your words, fierce and cleaving

Sunny was crying. Actually crying. Or at least making strange hiccupping sounds that in Ben’s opinion wasn’t much better.

‘I-I-I wish I ha-a-ad a relationship as g-g-oooood as yours!’ She threw her arms round Ben and squeezed.

‘I don’t,’ Charmcaster muttered.

Shar nodded firmly. ‘Yes, I am first and foremost what they call a ‘career woman.’ Romance will not halt the criminals in their tracks!’

And as winded as he was from the tight grip Sunny was exerting on his neck, Ben was still able to make out the smug all-knowing glint in Rook’s eyes as he turned to his sister. ‘Just you wait, Shar! When love strikes you, it will shift the way you put certain priorities into place!’

Shar rolled her eyes. ‘The Earth saying is that ‘love is blind’ not _illuminating_ , Brother. And given what I have seen today, I must say that it is a very fitting sentiment.’

Rook frowned as Charmcaster laughed.

‘Oooh, good one!’

She stuck out her palm, waving it in front of Shar’s face as the Revonnahgander stared at it blankly. ‘...You’re supposed to hit it!’

‘Oh!’ Shar perked up immediately. ‘Why didn’t you say so!’ She promptly threw a hefty punch into the centre of Charmcaster’s outstretched palm, only for it to bounce off as a pink bubble sprung out of the folds and waves of Charmcaster’s lifelines in order to cushion the blow.

‘Wow,’ said Charmcaster, ‘you really do take everything literally. I could get a _loooot_ of mileage out of this.’

Shar drew her fist back, confused. But it wasn’t bruised, Ben noticed, or sprouting snakes or anything else disturbing. So maybe Charmcaster’s time in the bag had actually softened her up. And hell, maybe these last few days had managed to make him do something similar for Sunny. He sighed and untangled himself from her arms, feeling a slight pang as her chest continued to heave. This was more Gwen’s department than his.

‘Try not to jump into a relationship straight away, this time,’ he told his step-cousin firmly. ‘Just take some time just for yourself. I remember how you thought Antonio was poetic, and you seemed to enjoy what Rook was saying. So maybe you should do some poetry classes or something. Or enter a lyric-writing contest.’

God, he really had turned into Gwen. He could just feel Rook vibrating with amusement beside him. But it didn’t seem to stop Sunny from brightening at the advice as her hair flared out into a tentacled halo of writhing sunbeams. ‘Yes! I should nurture my creative spark for someone who can appreciate it! Someone who isn’t Ricky!’

Ben felt his smile dip and waver at the mention of the guy’s name. Poor, monstrous Fistrick. Now he would never make the weak attempt to go straight.

Sunny narrowed her eyes and tilted her head to one side. ‘You don’t actually feel sorry for him, do you? He deserved his fate. Now he can be one with the darkness, the way we almost were.’

Rook stiffened. And Ben winced. Because Rook wasn’t stupid.

‘If Fistrick has been murdered-’

‘Whilst in the midst of attempting to place a whole species and their planet up for sale on the black market? Then I'm afraid that virtually no interstellar court will pursue the matter,’ Verdona finished tartly, not sounding sorry at all. ‘A single human life measured against the existence of an entire species, especially one many consider to be more valuable than humans, will not be seen as worthy of their time.’

Rook scowled. ‘That is not just.’

‘Few things in life are,’ Verdona said gravely. ‘And if you intend on climbing the Plumber ranks, you will soon have to learn to compromise with other factions in the universe who will not share the same sense of morality as you do.It is something I saw Max struggling to come to terms with many a time over the years.’

Yeah. Ben knew a little something about that. He took hold of Rook’s hand and squeezed gently.

‘I’m sorry. I know how fond you are of whipping those handcuffs out, but you’re not gonna get to arrest anyone this time.’

Rook stared down at him with that strange neutral look on his face he got sometimes, the one where his mouth tucked down slightly at the corners. Then it wavered and broke.

‘I suppose I should count my blessings,’ he said his fingers curling slightly into Ben’s own. ‘I have you back, after all. And it turned out to be a feat significantly more difficult than the last time you went undercover.’

Ben raised his eyebrows. ‘Hey now, I wasn’t the one who got kidnapped and held hostage that time. And I didn’t this time, either. Put in trouble, yes. But not _kidnapped._ ’

‘It sure felt like it,’ Rook said lowly, enough so for the tease in Ben’s smile to thoroughly slide away. And perhaps just enough to remind him of a strident point.

‘Grandma,’ he said, turning his head and raising his chin, just enough for him to stare into her glowing eyes. ‘Can you take this spark, or whatever it is, out of me? Because I already have the Omnitrix and I don’t need - I don’t _want_ whatever it is that Gwen’s got.’

Verdona’s smile turned a little sad. ‘I had a feeling you would ask me that. It’s that wretched human part of you. Perhaps I should have stuck around more when you were growing up and helped to expand your view more.’

Ben snorted at the idea, picturing his dad and Aunt Natalie having some very strong thoughts about such an occurrence. But perhaps, as his Grandfather had moaned once, he really did inherit his impish side from Verdona; because he definitely recognized the way her eyes were now crinkling at the corners.

‘Oooh, yes, we would have had so much fun together! Cracking and then rebuilding your aunt Natalie’s teacups, a little at a time so that she would have felt she were going crazy. I’m sure we could have come up with so many bright ideas!’

‘That sounds rather mean,’ Rook muttered, and Ben swore, for just a moment, that he heard the trail end of Charmcaster whispering, rather fiercely, ‘now why couldn’t Gwen have inherited more of that jovial attitude?’

He shook his head and turned back to Verdona. ‘Well? Can you? Ah, make me a real boy?’ his quirked his lips and hoped she got the joke. Only to feel put out moments later as he heard her let out a very blunt: ‘No.’

‘Well, why not?’ he asked, well aware that his voice was about to break into a near whine.

She sighed. ‘You might as well ask me to take away your spleen or liver,’ she explained, raising her hand out in a placating gesture. But the tied-together closeness of her fingers and the way their darkness caught the light harshly, like metal instead of the rounded softness of skin, reminded Ben of scalpels.

Rook tensed beside him, perhaps also reminded of something similar at the sight and Ben quickly moved his hand against the crook of his arm in gentle warning.

‘I can no more remove the spark from your system, than I can chip out pieces of your DNA and expect you to remain whole,’ Verdona continued to explain.‘It’s there, fused with the mana already circulating your system. You just have more of it now than you did before.’

There was a slight puff of air on the back of his neck and Ben nearly jumped out of his skin as he let go of Rook’s hand and swirled round to stare directly into Charmcaster’s grinning face.

‘So does that mean you can hurl out pink blobs of mana like your cousin?’ she asked, floating before him, all of her sprawled out casually onto her front as though the air beneath her was one long recliner. Her hands came up to perch beneath her chin to complete the effect, before she grinned, slow and easy, a strange chiding spark in her eyes. It reminded Ben rather sourly of the various iterations of the Cheshire Cat he had seen throughout his life.

He frowned. ‘Why should I tell you? And whose idea was it to bring _you_ along, anyway?’

Rook coughed. ‘Your cousin is hospitalised on account of what happened to Anodyne. She was the only one we could find on short notice who could sense mana and not faint.’

Ben’s eyes widened. ‘Gwen’s hurt!’

‘No,’ said Verdona ponderously, tilting her head to the side as though listening for something far away.‘She’s shouting at me through the mana-field. She appears to be fully conscious now. And quite angry.’

Charmcaster’s smile broadened. ‘Perhaps I should pay her a get-well-soon visit.’

Her iris and pupils were abruptly washed out by a broad white light as she lurched backwards, her knees bending up beneath her as though in support of her buckling frame. It was like she was trying to force herself into a new yoga position.

‘No,’ Ben said or started to say as he began to reach out for her, but with a blaze of white light, she disappeared and his fingers continued to pass through the space she had inhabited before. With a soft curse, he made them curl into a fist, only for them to loosen seconds later as the skin became surrounded by a soft neon-pink glow.

And Verdona let out a squeal very much like the teenage girl she was not.

Shocked, Ben stared at the bubble of light that had now formed round his fist like a lantern. It was energy, so it should have felt warm, radiating heat as though it were an electronic appliance. But instead it felt cool and crisp, reassuring in the same way that dabbing his hands in a stream after a long countryside hike with his Grandpa always felt. With another shock, he realised that he had never asked Gwen what it felt like to her to have her human skin surrounded by her own mana, and nervously, he took a step back, unsure whether to loosen his fist and risk letting the mana slip free and slide off into a bolt of pink like a bullet – but then there was a touch on his wrist, a quick, soft slide of fur chapping against his skin as Rook’s fingers closed over the line of flesh visible above the flare of pink.

‘Careful,’ Ben muttered, eyeing the mana as the bubble widened slightly, the rim of it flaring like the sudden swell of water against the shoreline. Rook’s fingers didn’t flinch at this approach, but they did tighten slightly.

‘Try and relax,’ the Revonnahgander instructed. ‘The more you feel, the more potent your power becomes. And your fear-’

‘I’m NOT scared!’

‘And your nerves,’ the Revonnahgander corrected, though Ben didn’t feel as though it were much of an amendment to be honest, ‘will only feed the mana and make it stronger. I have read Gwen’s file, as well as the Plumber’s limited research on Anodites, so I know.’

Verdona’s hands slipped down from her mouth as she gave Ben a pitying look. ‘Oh honey, did you have to date such a bookworm? They’re always such a downer at parties.’

Ben bit back the affront that was climbing up his throat as Rook narrowed his eyes at her. ‘You could be helping!’ his boyfriend said sternly, and just like that, all those retorts, all those comments about how Verdona’s favourite grandchild was just as much a bookworm as Rook, died an abrupt death in Ben’s mind. And the glow round his fist dimmed a little.

But Sunny was glaring at their Grandmother. ‘Well, compared to the guys I’ve dated, Rook seems like a regular Prince Charming!’ she spat out. ‘So, there, Grandma!’ She drifted down to Ben’s level, ignoring the surprised look Verdona gave her. ‘He’s also, annoyingly enough, right. You can’t just stop feeling emotions, or try to shove them away or whatever, otherwise they’ll blow up in your face later on. Literally. You just have to, _urgh_ , work through them as calmly as you can. It’s really annoying and time-wasting and I always go and blow stuff up rather than dealing with it. It’s more fun that way.’ She quails a little under Verdona’s glare. ‘But err, if you want to be all _boring_ about it, then you have to relax and...I guess...breathe? That’s what humans do to stay calm, right?’

Ben felt his lips twitch a little at that. Breathing? Relaxing? Those were the last suggestions he’d ever thought would escape her mouth.

‘Yes,’ said Shar stepping forward. ‘Let it go. Like that strangely catchy but still obnoxious song Shi and Shim would not stop humming when my _other_ brother downloaded that ‘Frozen’ Earth movie from the Xtranet.’

Ben did outright laugh at that. Enough for his fist to shake and uncurl slightly, allowing his tense fingers to escape from its shape. And like magic, as though the action was no more than a light switch, the pink glow of mana vanished alongside the unfurling of his knuckles.

‘Well,’ said Rook quietly after a moment. ‘Laughter does help to relax the muscles. And work wonders for your heart rate as well as aiding in reliving stress. I suppose I should not be surprised that it works on you rather than a simple mediation exercise.’ But he doesn’t sound grumpy, just unspeakably fond. Ha. Ben’s got his number.

‘Let’s go see Gwen now please,’ he said firmly, recognising the light glow in Rook’s eyes and the soft line of his smile as the unguarded I-will-do-whatever-you-want-with-more-grace-than-usual expression. He had to take advantage of it while he still could. ‘I don’t trust Charmcaster with her.’

Shar looked very much as though she wanted to fold her arms. ‘Yes. It would be irresponsible of us not to track her down.’

Plus, Ben was now becoming alert enough to see the little glares she kept throwing Sunny’s way. Which: uh –oh.

‘Ew,’ said Sunny, looking oblivious to all that. ‘Earth. How lame. Yeah, I think I’m checking out for this one.’ She brightened and then threw her arms around Ben, who tried not to tense as the cool lines of her limbs fell over his back. ‘It’s been real, cuz. And...kinda nice too. Let’s chat again sometime, okay? I never knew talking to a boy about boyfriend stuff could actually be fun!’

Ben had enough sense to fell relief that she didn’t refer to it as ‘girl-talk’ or anything even more embarrassing, before she drew back, threw him a taunt wave and disappeared.

Verdona stared after her wistfully. ‘Well, it seems there is hope for her after all...I was beginning to despair.’ Then she turned back to Ben with a clap of her hands. ‘Alright, then! All aboard the Grandma Express!’

‘Wow, Grandma. _Lame_.’

 

\--------------------------

 

Gwen had been having a lousy day. Rook had called her, panicked, when Ben, Sunny and oh yeah, a _whole planet_ had disappeared, leaving nothing but a tiny star in its wake and she had immediately rapped out a tense ‘I’ll be there,’ and tried not to feel too guilty as she hung up. She knew, logically, that Rook was Ben’s partner in more ways than one, but still, when things like this happened, it was like a klaxon signal started to scream through her brain and that same panicked thread of‘Ben, Ben, Ben, can’t, WON’T let anyone hurt him, no one except ME’ flared out inside her the way it had during that turbulent summer together when they were ten.

And then, after Kevin and her had arrived at the scene of the crime, she had ended up swaying slightly, even before she had attempted to leave her seat. The energy outside the ship was massive, it bubbled and rolled and screeched in a molten ball of gold like a lost dragon, the flecks of fire running over its surface managing to break away, time and again, to curve out into space like the stray flicks of a wing or tail. It’s roar – and how could Kevin not hear it? – beat against the inside of her skull, flickers of voices and half-made out words thrumming through her brain and attempting to mash it down into potato salad.

‘Help,’ she had said weakly, and then she had fallen, even as Kevin lurched out of his seat to catch her.

Soo...that plan of rescuing Ben? That had been out of her hands, quite literally. And now she was propped up against the blue wall of her bedroom, having successfully wrestled her way free of the sheets, and feeling, quite frankly, out of it. She had no concept of how much time had passed and either Kevin or her Mom had stepped out for a glass of water or something, because Charmcaster was now here, lazily tapping her heels against the back of her desk chair, and no one was screaming.

Gwen scowled. ‘Get down from there!’

Charmcaster rolled her eyes, but obliging shuffled her bottom off Gwen’s desk, sliding her legs beneath the back-rest of the chair like it was a safety-bar on a theme park ride, so that all of her could easily slide down onto the seat below properly. The motion reminded Gwen a little too much of a snake or perhaps a particularly slimy eel, but she refused to take her eyes away.

Charmcaster grinned. ‘You really are nothing like your Grandma.’

Gwen’s mind raced at that, her hands shooting out to let pink light brush out from her fingertips threateningly. It pulsed there, but she refused to let it fire off into the high-speed bullets Charmcaster knew she could produce.

‘You’ve never met my Grandma – or at least you shouldn’t have. Can’t have. Not with the mess on Anodyne being what it is. Which means...did YOU have something to do with it?’

Charmcaster let out a delighted laugh as Gwen sprang forever, every freckle on her furious face now highlighted by the pink that built and burnt into a blinding intensity at the ends of her hands. ‘WHAT DID YOU DO TO BEN?!?’

Charmcaster smiled and made as though to draw something from her sleeve, but then there was a crash of light – that’s the only way Gwen could think of it afterwards,a crash, not a flash – because the walls shook for a moment, and reality swirled in a white blaze, and suddenly Grandma was there, her hair flaring out to cover and cross her ceiling like a halo, the tendrils curling round the light bulb fixed in her ceiling like a curious octopus.

Gwen blinked, her mind registering the shapes standing stiffly underneath, registering _Ben_ , before one of them leaped between her and Charmcaster and stumbled on account of the mummy-look-a-like her right side was weighed down by.

‘Halt!’ Gwen blinked against as the female Revonnahgander swiveled her head round to glare at Charmcaster, mostly because she had never seen a woman of Rook’s species up close before. And while the slant of her face and that faint offshoot of her dark, feline nose were more delicate than the bolder curves that made up Rook’s own, that similar ruff of white decorating the majority of her face seemed to mark her out as the sister Rook had rather proudly described to her over the phone a few times.

‘No more magic. Or I shall lasso you again.’

Gwen shook away the strangeness of the statement and darted over to Ben who was looking both exhausted and relieved to see her.

‘Ben!’

‘Gwen! I heard you fainted!’

Gwen hugged him and resolved to cuff him on the head later for the sheer glee she heard in his voice. ‘Oh, what happened to you!’ She tried to supress the shudder as she pulled away, but it felt like static clung to her shoulders, faint pinpricks running up and down her arms. The air hummed between them and she could tell Ben felt it too, because of the uncomfortable look he gave her.

‘Um...it’ s a long story?’

Verdona laughed and swirled down from the ceiling to join them. ‘Oh, but it is a most joyous one too! It seems you are no longer the only one of my earthbound grandchildren who nurses an Anodite within their human skin!’

Ben flinched. And Gwen...she wasn’t sure what to feel.

Because...he had always had the Omnitrix. Been the first one of them to be special. But then she had found magic and her powers, and had kept them, learnt more, made them grow, even after he had shed the Omnitrix for a few teenage years of normalcy. And for once she had been the special one. Even more so, when it was revealed that she had inherited something inside of her that would never spark and grow within Ben.

This...this changed every- _no_. Not everything. Just the way she perceived them both.

There was a loud bang as the door swung back, almost off its frame and Kevin bowled in fist-first. ‘Gwen!’ Then he stopped. ‘Ooookay,’ he said, eyes flicking over everyone in her room, before they landed with a scowl on Charmcaster. ‘Glad to see you back in the land of the living, buddy, and not as part of some fireball, but did you have to bring, well, Caroline here?’ he jerked his head over to Charmcaster, who smirked, waved and blew a grossly exaggerated kissy face at him.

Shar let out a small gasp. ‘He is not your mate! You should not be flirting with him! Unless....’ she paused, brought a tentative finger up to her mouth and ventured a guess. ‘Unless you are all part of a polygamous relationship...’

Charmcaster, who had been developing quite an ugly scowl at each word dropping out of Shar’s mouth, straightened slightly in surprise at the last two words, before her head dropped down and her shoulders began to shake.

‘Shar!’ Rook looked appalled, his eyes nearly bugging out of their sockets. ‘You cannot, you must not- what have you been reading!’

Shar frowned at him. ‘Many alien cultures engage in relationships that are not purely monogamous. I was shocked too at first, but when I began reading the anthropologic backgrounds for such behaviour, I could begin to understand why such things started and how it was less a deviant behaviour and more of a lifestyle. And for some people, a necessary one.’

Rook’s mouth seemed to be caught in a black hole, his fingers flexing slightly as though they wished to shoot something. Charmcaster meanwhile, had given up all pretense and was cackling her head off, kicking her heels back so violently that they lurched up and managed to catch at the edge of Gwen’s desk.

‘Quit that! You’ll chip the paint!’

But Verdona simply shook her head, and with a sad look on her face, hovered down to Ben’s level and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, giving him a patronizing pat as she did so. ‘How did you wind up with such a prude for a boyfriend? I just hope he makes up for it behind closed doors.’

Ben stiffened, looking horrified. Gwen didn’t blame him in the slightest. She raised her fist, letting it glow a healthy pink.

‘Charmcaster, for the last time: GET. OFF. MY. DESK!’

 

\--------------------------

 

Five minutes and a smashed desk later; everyone was more or less settled down. Some things, Gwen thought irritably, glancing over the chipped splinters marring the lining of far-flung drawer, were just inevitable. Case in point: remain with a five metre radius of Ben and something was bound to get broken, even if he wasn’t the direct cause.

She sighed. ‘Ben, you can’t just...make yourself not an Anodite. It’s a part of you now.’

Ben flung his hands up. ‘Sure you can! Find the right magic spell and hey, presto chango! I’m back to not being a pink flashlight!’

‘You have only managed that trick once,’ Shar pointed out. She was leaning down inside an old bean-bag cushion that Lucy had given Gwen for Christmas. It was purple and ragged and the stitching was awful, great, ghastly, uneven crosses of navy littering its sides in hulking patches, but it made Shar tip over and giggle slightly every time she shifted within it like it was novelty, so Gwen grudgingly decided that it had its uses. Plus, it seemed to have entertained Charmcaster, as she was busy stroking her fingers across the forms of one such cross in question. Perhaps it reminded her of the similar blend of ugly stitching that decorated her bag and its weird face.

‘I don’t care how many times I manage to give everyone a lightshow, so long as there’s an end to it,’ Ben said angrily, now sitting on the carpet. His fist clenched and there was a faint pink glow hovering over the taunt knuckles for half a second before Ben caught sight of it, swore (and that caught Gwen off-guard – Ben hardly ever swore for fear of small kid or media camera lurking nearby) and uncurled his fist, lying it flat against the floor evenly.The pink hue faded as Ben glared at it, but failed to cut out completely.

Looking worried, Rook leant over and slid his fingers across the faintly pulsing ones of his boyfriend’s, letting them settle over the small, knobbly bends of the knuckles with the large collective arch of his hand. It was weird, Gwen thought with a start. Ben’s hands were littered with faint lines and wrinkles, a collective web of green running beneath the skin in the form of blood vessels like all human’s. But now they were hidden away by the light, tucked over by its pink spillage in the same way such biological features were always hidden away on Rook’s hands by his fur. And it was weird to see such a contrast lost between them.

Either way, the light seemed to flare up even brighter at Rook’s touch.

‘Err...’ said Ben looking alarmed. Rook didn’t look much better off, in fact he was wincing as though in pain, but after a moment the line of his mouth became firmer and he pressed down a little harder.

Pink instantly pressed out, no, sprang out across the carpet, bouncing into the leg of Gwen’s bed with small explosive shatter. With a quick snap of a creak, pieces of wood shook off the limb as it bent and broke in two and Gwen was forced to sigh as she conjured up a pillar of pink to hold her dangerously swaying bed in place. ‘Grandma?’ she asked between gritted teeth.

‘Of course.’ A moment later, her bed no longer needed to sway as the leg reformed itself, broken matter twisted and reshaped like clay so that it snapped back together without a crack in place to mar it. Gwen bit her lip. She had almost seen what her Grandma did that time, the way she pushed and pulled the mana into doing what she wanted...but no. She couldn’t quite hold it in her mind, the way reality snapped back into ‘being’ like an elastic band, instead of simply ‘wishing’ it to be so.

Verdona sighed and gently slid her hand over Rook’s with a firm, gravelly pat, the way a caring parent might do to a child in need of reassurance. ‘Off,’ she told him firmly, ‘you’re making it worse.’

Startled, he drew his hand back.

‘Ben,’ said Verdona. ‘Producing mana for Anodites is a highly emotive process. I’m amazed Gwen managed to control it so well when we first met, unschooled as she was. But perhaps that was precisely why; she was still a child when she first discovered what she could do and children, as I have seen in many species, are highly adaptive. You, while still young, are a little more...fixed, shall we say, than when you were ten. And in love. That will make it harder. Love makes every emotion harder to handle, especially when in the presence of the one responsible.’

Ben flushed and Rook coughed quietly. Which, of course, did nothing to prevent Kevin from letting out a shit-eating grin.‘Aww.’

Ben wriggled. ‘Shut it, Levin.’

But Rook was frowning. ‘When Ben learns to rein in this power and unleash it as he wills, it will be quite useful, yes?’

Gwen felt her heart sink, though she was not quite sure why. Especially as Rook’s voice picked up, the excitement within it growing in order to reach up and make his eyes brighten with a gleam. ‘So why not train it, Ben? The Omnitrix, while useful is not always reliable. But with this in reserve, you will be able to protect yourself better!’

Ben gave him a dull look. ‘Meaning I couldn’t protect myself before...?’

Gwen clapped a hand over her mouth to prevent herself from snorting.

Rook blinked. Then gave him a crooked smile that wasn’t _quite_ insincere, but still ran awkward enough for Ben to narrow his eyes at it. ‘Is that a rhetorical question? Your skills are not insufficient. But I will not deny that ‘every little bit helps’ and I for one, would welcome such an asset.’

‘Oh really?’ Ben asked coldly, drawing his hand away from Verdona. She let him, but there was now a twist of worry to her brow that had not been there before. ‘Was it still just an asset barely an hour ago when I nearly lost my humanity for good and you were prepared to shoot my Grandma in the face to get it back?’

Rook stiffened. But he wasn’t the only one. Gwen could feel her own spine being pulled up straight and beside her, she could see Kevin’s eyebrows falling, the joke being wiped off his face.

‘Soap opera central, here we come,’ murmured Charmcaster, an avid expression now on her face.

Rook’s eyes narrowed. ‘That was different,’ he said, equally as cold. ‘You were not just in danger of losing your humanity; you were in danger of losing your individuality as well. I had never seen you so disoriented before, so unsure. All creatures suffer self-doubt, but you usually make an effort to hide it. And this time you were incapable of even that.’

‘Well, excuse me for having millions of voices in my brain!’ Ben shot back. ‘It’s not easy hosting a planetful of energy beings!’

‘My point exactly!’ Rook exclaimed, throwing his arms out in that dramatic flair of exasperation that often caught him when he was dealing with Ben. ‘You were in pain!’

‘Weeeell it didn’t exactly hurt in the ‘ow’ kinda way, but even if it did,-’

‘You were in pain,’ Rook stated factually, his voice lowering and now sounding a lot more sure of itself as a result. ‘And I had to stop it. And in the future, when you are in danger of suffering pain again and you have Anodite powers to help prevent that, then how can I not want you to keep them and use them in such situation?’

Ben’s eyes dropped, his hands floundered against his knees for a second, and he looked, for lack of a better term, lost.

‘I’m the wielder of the Omnitrix,’ he said lowly, a familiar stubborn jut to his jaw. ‘And it’s suited me fine, long before now. I don’t need magic, I don’t need mana, and I don’t need to start glowing pink every time I _feel_ something.’

Already there was a slight flicker of bright pink spreading out from between his fingers, like the tiny shake before the main eruption, but before it could burst into a fully-formed glow, Ben closed his eyes, breathed in harshly, and the light dropped, crashing and smashing into pieces against the carpet like Gwen’s mana platforms often did.

Gwen bit her tongue to prevent herself from pointing out that _all_ living things needed mana in order to exist, but Ben was already clambering to his feet and striding out of the room and Rook, his eyes still narrowed, was swiftly jumping up in order to follow him. And that was when Gwen felt herself move, felt pink blossom under her feet with no more than a thought in order to push herself between him and Ben, cleaving much-needed space between the two.

‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘Let me talk to him. As one human-anodite hybrid to another.’

 


	10. Until I re-map them, rain them on your skin

 

She found Ben downstairs, stealing shortbread biscuits from the jar next to the Bread Bin - both things were painted a hideous tortoiseshell pattern and as though to complete that same dastardly effect, her mother was leaning next to the dishwasher, her brown jacket clashing horribly against her tan trousers. And all the while, her eyebrows steadily rose into her hairline as Ben frantically shoveled four of the now misshapen shortbread biscuits into his mouth.

Gwen suppressed a shudder.

‘You do know how much fat is in those things, right?’ she asked.

Ben didn’t so much as glance at her. ‘WhrydoyathiunkImma eating 'em?’ he grunted out.

Her mother looked appalled, and quite honestly Gwen couldn’t blame her. Ben was far from polite, but he usually made an effort to act civilised in front of her parents.

‘Ben,’ she said, then trailed off. Because her mother didn’t like alien stuff. Her nose wrinkled if she ever so much as saw pink flare off from Gwen’s eyes or hands.

Ben snorted and swallowed a few crumbs from his fingers. ‘Aunt Natalie, not to be a pain, but we’re gonna be talking about alien stuff. Anodite stuff. Not that we wanna make you feel uncomfortable or anything, but...’

Her mother sniffed and promptly walked out of the room and for one brief moment, Gwen was reminded of Sunny and Verdona and the way they pointedly glided away from anything that failed to hold their interest. The comparison was enough to make her smile.

‘You shouldn’t have done that. She’ll send you the cheapest possible card for your next birthday and no present.’

Ben gave her a level stare. ‘Oh no, how on earth will I survive?’

Gwen's smile widened and she brought her hand up to her face, letting a familiar pink glow burst up around her palm. Then she stretched it out towards Ben, almost as though she were asking for a handshake.

‘Gwen, what are you-’

‘Remember when we first went to Ledgerdomain and Charmcaster and I held hands to power up her spells?’ she interrupted. ‘I couldn’t hurt her with my mana because she had an affinity for it. And you won’t be able to hurt me with yours, no matter how out of control it gets.’

Ben raised an eyebrow. ‘What is this? A trust exercise?’

And Gwen raised one of her own in return. ‘Sure. Why not?’

Ben stared at her for a minute and then slowly, as though he were afraid she was going to suddenly reach out and karate chop him in the palm, reached out with his own hand.

‘No,’ said Gwen softly, ‘c’mon, light it up. You won’t hurt me.’

Ben gave her a piercing stare but after a moment his brow wrinkled and pink flickered around his fingers. It seemed to shudder, sliding out into non-existence for one second, before springing back into an unsteady flare of light, the next.

Tired, Gwen reached out and grasped his hand, threading her mana directly into the briefs spikes of light clashing against her steady glow. Ben jolted at that and so did she. A flood of nerves, of anger, pulsed low and steady into her head from Ben, and she struggled, projecting calm into the light around her palm, as she tried to soothe the jittery flickers round Ben’s fingers.

Ben breathed. ‘Oh no,’ he said, ‘I did not sign up for any mind-jedi tricks.’

He was about to pull back, Gwen could tell, so she said in a rush: ‘wait,  _wait_ , tell me how you lit it up the first time?’

Ben blinked. ‘I was trying to stop Charmcaster. I panicked because she was going to you and I couldn’t really stop it.’ A half-hearted smile appeared on his face, dancing there briefly before it dropped away and Gwen felt herself ache to see it go. ‘I was so caught up in everything that was happening that I didn’t even stop to use the Omnitrix. Lame, huh?’

‘It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve rushed into the action without transforming,’ Gwen pointed out, surprised to hear her voice emerge as a low whisper. ‘I can understand why Rook’s so happy about this happening, even if you aren’t.’

As soon as she mentioned his partner, the light surrounding Ben’s hand flared, reaching up to twine with her own glow. It pulsed slightly, and Gwen felt a rush of more anger, leaked with confusion and a touch of affection leaking up her arm and into her stomach. It was weird feeling the realm of the emotional breach into the physical, no longer trapped inside the boy before her, and she wondered if the transition felt smoother to pure Anodites, given the way their bodies were designed.

Ben laughed. ‘Okay, this is more like it.’ He gave her a fond look. ‘You’re just as freaked out about this as I am, aren’t you? I wasn’t sure but yep, I’m feeling all kinds of trepidation from you.’

Gwen sighed. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t want to be all petty and jealous but-’

‘No, no,’ Ben said airily, waving his free hand around in a dismissive, well, _wave._ ‘I get it. Before that summer with Grandpa I used to get jealous of the way your parents, well, your mum anyway, would boost to mine, about all these certificates and prizes you’d win. She actually used to bring your medals round and show them off in a little velvet-coated box like they were a diamond ring or something. And my Mum would just sit, a pleasant smile on her face and say, ‘yes, Ben’s doing quite well on the soccer team.’ Which didn’t really compare, you know? I mean, she was nice about it and everything but you could just feel it, the way my Dad was struggling to smile with her and how your mum was...’ Ben trailed off, suddenly aware that anything he might say next probably wouldn’t paint her mum in the best light.

Gwen swallowed. ‘I never knew you felt like that. I mean you were always calling me a geek and dweeb and stuff. I always thought you looked down on me as a swot.’

‘Well, I kinda did,’ Ben admitted. ‘But that didn’t mean that I couldn’t see how it paid off sometimes.’

Gwen laughed and the orb of light round her palm slid carefully into her cousin’s, causing them to shine a brilliant, hot white for a moment, to burn like a miniature sun, before thoughts and images started racing down between them like snapshots from a holiday album, all jumbled out of time.

- _Pride, delicious, hot, dizzy pride threading through her at the look on Ken’s face because he had come to see her, taken time out from his tour of university campuses to see her at her drama club, even though Mum hadn’t come, telling her that it ‘wasn’t as if there was an achievement waiting for you at the end of it, anyway.’_ –

- _Guilt, stupid, hot, ugly guilt, and it made him shake as he saw the red stain the water, his Grandpa’s hand on his back as he said ‘that’s nature for you,’ but still Ben didn’t mean to, if he had known the larger fish would tear the smaller one apart, he would never have put them in the same bucket_ -

-‘ _Sorry,’ Gwen said as she touched the burn on Kevin’s mouth, she had only lost control for a second, but sometimes that was all it took_ -

\- ‘ _Sorry,’ said Rook as he touched the bite on Ben’s shoulder, and Ben had only made the tiniest yelp, but sometimes that was all it took_ -

- _for him to look at her and grin and say ‘hot.’_ -

- _for him to look at him and sigh and say ‘let us stop.’-_

\- _‘NO!’ screamed Gwen, seeing Kevin and Ben fall at her feet, looking lifeless, and it tugged at her, that temptation to go full-on Anodite and sweep all their enemies away, but if she did that she might not come back, might not want to go back to being human and easily hurt, and the disappointment in Kevin’s and her Grandpa’s eyes wouldn’t even scorch her, she would look at them and think ‘well, aren’t they tiny.’_ -

\- _No, thought Ben, seeing the Omnitrix fly off his wrist, feeling something in him shatter as he handed it over to Vilgax, because Gwen and Kevin were more important, always would be, but there was still something selfish in him that wondered, for the briefest of moments, what would happen if he said no, if he slammed his palm down and trusted in the chance that he could move just that little bit faster than Vilgax and then he wouldn’t have to give anything up at all._ -

- _‘Yes,’ said Kevin, the grin overtaking his face, ‘a million times yes, babe, we’ll be there and back before your art class starts at three.’_ -

-‘ _Yes,’ Ben heard himself say, ‘whatever you want Rook Blonko, Magister, I’ll call you anything you want if you get us home in time to catch the Sumo Slammer special.’_ -

- _A hole opened up her insides at the look on Ben’s face, at the way the ice in his voice bit her as he said Kevin needed to be put down like a dog_ -

- _A hole opened up his insides at the look on Grandpa’s face, at the way his eyes flittered to the ground as he asked if he was sure, because he thought, after seeing the gameshow that he had something going on with Kai and wasn’t she a nice girl and yes, Rook was nice too, but_ -

- _‘Everything will be alright, because we’re gonna make it so,’ Kevin declared stoutly, still half-naked, but Gwen didn’t care because she had got him back and_ -

- _‘There you are,’ Rook said, stroking Ben’s hair away from his face and Ben shuddered at the sensation, at the overwhelming feeling of being human again and tried not to remember how a whole planet had filled his head not minutes before._ –

Gwen staggered back, Ben grabbed the kitchen counter, and the light faded, the contact between them lost.

‘You better not be setting off any magic fireworks in the kitchen!’ came her mother’s voice and Gwen laughed, still a little disoriented by the strength of feelings that were not her own, no matter how much of a memory they truly were.

‘Wow,’ Ben gasped, ‘I did _not_ need that close-up of Kevin.’

‘And I never needed to see Rook make _goo-goo_ eyes at me either!’ Gwen retorted sharply, though her voice lacked any real heat.

Ben grinned at her, straightening slightly. ‘Yeah. Perhaps this wasn’t the best idea to make me jump aboard Team Anodite.’

Gwen snorted.

Ben frowned a little. ‘It’s not that I don’t get why Rook wouldn’t want me to have an extra weapon in my arsenal,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s just...you weren’t there. Although you might have caught the tail end of what it was like at the end there. And he was right about me not being...well, me. And it could still happen, if I get too immersed in being an Anodite. I’ve seen it happen to you.’ He brought the Omnitrix up to his face, tilting it slightly as he eyed it’s plastic shine. ‘When I transform, I have to be that alien fully. All it’s quirks, the body...it’s mine and I’m it. Because if I’m not there, if I try to distance myself from it, then I’m distracted and I’m dead. It’s just...I don’t know how to be an alien and not fully immerse myself in the experience. And I can’t do that with this Anodite thing. Otherwise I’ll lose myself.’

Gwen’s quiet. She’d never really heard Ben explain his transformations like that before. But it made sense.

‘Kevin helps ground me,’ she said quietly after a moment. ‘And not just him, all that earthly stuff I once described to Grandma. Eating and doing fun stuff with my friends, breaking boards with my hands, things that being an Anodite doesn’t help you feel.’ She smiled. ‘From what I’ve seen of you, you’ll have no problems thinking up reasons to stay. Just think; a smoothie will never taste the same again if you’re stuck as an Anodite.’

Ben’s eyes widened in horror. And Gwen felt relief touch her. Because maybe, just maybe, she had managed to get through to him.

 

\--------------------------

 

Night was a casual time, filled with the ringing of the doorbell and multiple boxes of pizza being delivered under the hallway light. But the Pizza-man still did a double take as Charmcaster collected the take-out - not because she was hot, but because Shar stood bristling over her shoulder - and that was mostly because Ben had hastily whispered for someone to ‘supervise her, otherwise she could poison the pepperoni with a spell or something.’

Charmcaster ignored him and sniffed, drawing a few dollar bills out of thin air with a casual swirl of light that made the poor Pizza-man’s eyes widen even further. Luckily, his legs still remembered how to work and he quickly high-tailed it out of there after the blue cat lady muttered about how ‘there better be a way to prove that was not counterfeit tender.’

‘Oh hush,’ Charmcaster said cheerfully, bopping Shar on the nose with another magically appearing dollar bill. ‘I can literally make it rain money and you’re complaining? Why, do _you_ want to pay the bill?’

Shar wrinkled her nose from under the droop of paper money that rested there, whisking it away with her fingers before popping it on top of the pizza boxes that Charmcaster was now making orbit round her shoulders. ‘I have heard it is customary to give deliverymen tips on this planet. Please magic this into his pocket. He left without it.’

Charmcaster eyed her. ‘If I make it disappear, how can you be sure I’ve done as you asked?’

Shar shrugged with one shoulder. ‘I cannot. But it is better than having him scream because a blue-furred alien is running after him waving a piece of money.’

Charmcaster thought about that for a moment and then shrugged and brushed past her, the money disappearing with a rippling white flare of light. ‘Alright, we got a cheese and tomato – _boring_ , probably Gwen’s-’

‘Hey!’

‘That’s mine, actually.’

‘Kevin’s? Huh. Well aren’t _you_ a teddy bear. Oh, but you’re sharing with Gwen so it still counts, ha. And now, ham and pineapple-’

‘Mine,’ said Shar firmly, grabbing the box before it could go sailing off onto the coffee table. ‘I have never had pineapple that is cooked before – I am anxious to try it. And I am too hungry to share.’

Charmcaster smiled and to everyone else in the room, she gave off the same air as a hungry crocodile. ‘Alright. And –urgh – anchovies, green pepper and chilli?’

‘Oooh!’ Rook bounced up from his seat like a child, arms eagerly outstretched. ‘That would be mine! Are you sure you do not wish to share, Ben?’

Ben eyed him from behind his barrier of rose-pink cushions. ‘Quite sure, yeah.’

Rook shrugged, not looking greatly surprised. ‘Your loss.’

For a moment Charmcaster looked as though she wanted to hurl the box straight into his face just out of principle. But no, a moment later it simply went sailing into Rook’s fingers in a low-set glide.

‘So, I guess I’m sharing the pepperoni with Ben.’

‘No funny stuff,’ Ben warned her. ‘This pepperoni better taste like spiced sausage and not magic slugs or frog guts or stuff.’

Gwen stopped and turned to fix him with a glare as she slowly chewed on her first mouthful of cheese and tomato.

Charmcaster cackled and bounced down between Ben and Rook, deftly untwisting the cardboard top from its base. ‘Please. If I’m gonna kill you, it’ll be with something much more flashy than poison.’

‘How reassuring,’ Kevin muttered.

But still. The evening was nice. Aunt Natalie was sulking upstairs at the amount of alien guests invading her house and Verdona was chilling on the ceiling, just watching them eat. And as Ben seized a huge mouthful of pepperoni, his teeth sawing through with a physical grind that almost felt painful, alongside the heat of melted cheese blurring against his tongue, he thought, for a moment, that maybe he could navigate his way out of this mess.

 

\--------------------------

 

Ben groaned and thumped down against the sheets in Rook’s quarters. He should have wanted to go home, should have wanted the comfort of familiarity that came with his green duvet. But going home meant dealing with his parents and he wasn’t ready to talk to them about what had happened, would probably never _be_ ready. His Mum wouldn’t bat an eye, he didn’t think, but his Dad...Ben groaned and rolled his head into Rook’s pillow.

He heard the slight thump as Rook’s Proto-Armour hit the floor and then the careful rustle as Rook folded it neatly into a typically squarish shape. Next, there was a slight thud as it was dropped firmly onto a shelf, before, after the sound of two easy strides, Rook’s fingers became busy pushing into Ben’s side, smoothing over the creases in his clothes with a faint nudge.

‘You should not go to sleep, fully clothed. You will feel better if...’

‘I wear attire more suited for the evening hours,’ Ben said drolly, too tired to inject much mocking into his tone. He let out a snort as Rook raised a brow at him and then left to dig through a set of drawers nearby.

‘You only ever leave one set of pyjamas over here and they are currently in the wash,’ he muttered as explanation, glancing back in time to see the sly smile curl Ben’s lips. He frowned as Ben waved a hand dismissively at him before letting it drop back onto the sheets. After all, what was the big deal?

It’s not like they _didn’t_ often end up sleeping bare-skin-to-fur whenever he stayed the night. And it wasn’t even a sex thing, just some weird rough cuddling that quickly descended into a casual drift into the land of slumber. He’d never met anyone quite like Rook before, someone so eager to hug in bed that he didn’t care how ruffled and unmanly they looked doing it. Then again, it wasn’t like Ben had really hugged a lot of other guys in bed, so he wasn’t an expert, though it was, he acknowledged, the sort of thing Sunny would know or be interested in. Not that he was going to be traveling down that road, thank you very much.

‘I can’t believe Grandma wants me to take lessons from Gwen. And that she wants to supervise them.’

Rook’s lips quirked. ‘Your cousin does have more experience in managing her Anodite heritage, so it makes sense.’

Ben stared at the ceiling. ‘I wonder if Sunny would give me lessons...Gwen’s gonna get all technical and have actual lesson plans drawn up beforehand. But Sunny would let me have some fun.’

His view of the ceiling was promptly cut off as Rook threw a large T-shirt at him. Well, large by Ben’s standards, not by Rook’s. After he had finished drowning beneath the white material, Ben cast it from his face with a glare. ‘Knew you still had that lying around.Can’t believe you spend the whole cruise wearing this over your armour.’

‘Considering how the ship was attacked barely a day later, it turned out to be a wise choice,’ Rook pointed out, before he seated himself beside Ben. But Ben was feeling a little too angsty to be comfortable around him and he quickly dived off, almost stumbling as he started tugging off his clothes in a whirl of hurried movement.

‘Ben?’ he heard his partner ask in trepidation as he slithered out of the prison jumpsuit and started yanking his underwear down his legs. Ben pushed out a shaky breath as he kicked off the last of his clothes, pausing to reshape them into a neatish pile with his hands rather than simply kicking them away from the bed the way he usually did. Then he straightened, and with all the confidence he didn’t feel, he turned, marched over to Rook and flopped into his lap.

Rook went surprisingly rigid, hands knuckling into the sheets under his hips as Ben pushed his own hands round the cheeks that fell away under those surprised orange eyes, letting the fur poke through between fingers and thumbs. And then his mouth was attached to Rook’s as he waggled his tongue inside, shoving in with that familiar swipe and stroke that, with them, was as familiar as a door knock.

Rook softened a little and shifted, his hand coming up to play with the loose dip at Ben’s back that signified his spine falling away into a curve. And Ben pushed deeper, letting his tongue flick over Rook’s teeth playfully, as he pulled his head back slightly to let himself lean in at a new angle.

‘Love you,’ he mumbled, between breaths, between licks, because now Rook’s tongue was pressing forwards, ripping into his mouth with it’s characteristic curl and flick that was so typical of a cat.

Rook let out an appreciative hum and pulled away, his other hand finally drifting away from the bed to settle at Ben’s hip. ‘We are not having sex,’ he told Ben firmly, a rather wicked smirk pasting itself onto his mouth.

Ben eyed it, then tilted his head to one side slowly, letting the end of his curls fall against his neck with a slight rustle. It was a move that took more luck than actual skill to pull off, thanks to the bend of gravity, but he knew he struck gold by the way he saw Rook’s throat bulge as he swallowed. Wasting no time, he leaned up to kiss the slight hollow the motion had left behind, smiling as the fur rose up to form another lump, also due to be swallowed down as his lips meshed with the fur once again.

‘You say that, but I know you’re interested,’ Ben said, before pulling away to inspect the state of Rook’s expression. Because yep, mission accomplished, he had managed to chase away that smirk and replace it with actual doubt. As well as an excited and widened gleam of inky black pupils. Poor Rook. Those cat-like attributes of his species really worked against him sometimes. ‘Besides, I seem to remember promising to make it up to you when I was a lost waif of an Anodite.’

Rook frowned. ‘I also remember telling you that I did not care so long as you became human again.’ His hand climbed up over the curve of Ben’s back and the crease of his shoulder, dragging its way into his hair. ‘I love you, and I will always be there to help you find your way back into being a hairless ape once more,’ he told him, sounding very grave. ‘That will always be true no matter what alien form you have happened to immerse yourself in. Your experiences as Benjamin Tennyson outweigh them all.’

Ben made a face, trying to ignore the soothing strokes Rook was now pulling through his hair. ‘Did you have a chat with Gwen while I wasn’t paying attention?’

‘An easy feat,’ Rook teased, ‘while your eyes were hooked on the ‘action flick’ in front of us. You did not notice Gwen giving me a ‘look’ as she asked me to help clear up the pizza boxes.’

Ben groaned a little. ‘Whatever. That still doesn’t mean-’

‘You are having trouble controlling your powers,’ Rook broke in firmly. ‘The more you feel, the more likely you are to glow. Gwen told me she had to be careful while navigating her physical relationship with Kevin.’

Ben remembered the burnt lip from one of Gwen’s downloaded memories and grimaces. ‘All the more reason for us to practise,’ he said, allowing his voice to dip down into its familiar wheedling tone. ‘Plus, it will give me experience in what to expect when I really cut myself loose.’

Rook sighed. But gave in and lifted his legs as Ben started tugging on his underwear insistingly.

‘I do love you,’ he informed Ben. ‘But you are a metaphorical pain in the butt. Though the pain in your butt, by the time we are done, will be remarkably more physical.’

Ben hesitated as Rook’s underwear left his legs and fell on a flop by the floor. ‘Erm.’

But then that wicked smirk was back in place as Rook rolled him onto his back, flicking his teeth almost casually against the line of his neck as the Revonnahgander left tiny love bites, faint marks that would barely glance across the resulting photograph the next time a camera flashed in Ben’s line of sight. Ben laughed, and pushed his wrists out to either side, careful not to reach out and grasp for any part of Rook; faint pink was already starting to decorate his lifelines, running just beneath the skin like a stream.

Noticing, Rook gave him a warm grin. ‘Already?’ he asked, but it was hard to feel angry at him for the taunt, not when that big head dived back down and starting pasting sloppy, open-mouthed kisses over the bites.

Needlessly to say, the walls of Rook’s room and, a few tightly-clenched handholds of his sheets ended up crisp and slightly blackened the next morning.

 

\--------------------------

 

Ben inspected the damage with a droll eye. We can paint over them, he thought determinedly. It wasn’t like Rook’s room couldn’t do with the colour, anyway. And as for the sheets? Well, how expensive could it be to buy more?

There was a beep and he rolled over with a groan to reach for the green mobile phone Rook had thoughtfully deposited on the shelf nearest them. It felt good to run his fingers back over the casing again, to feel it’s familiar weight resting in his palm. A solid, human thing where the buzz and crackle of energy only happened inside.

He couldn’t help but sigh though, as he read the new text that had appeared.

_Hey Ben! Got this number from Grandma. She’s a pushover now that she’s thinks I’m more ‘responsible’ lol. Anyway gonna pop in and see how your doing with those boring, lameo lessons she’s got princess cooking up for you. I want to make sure she doesn’t get you all prim and proper. And how’re things with the boyfriend? Is the sex good, y/n? I never really bothered to ask and I know humans have these weird feelings about knowing other’s family members behaviour over this stuff, but c’mon, you’re part anodite now tooooo, so you gotta tell me this! Besides Grandma says that while your relationship’s dreary and boring, it’s also healthy, so I figure you could tell me what sort of behaviour to look for with my next boyfriend? Any tips?_

_Xoxo Sunny!_

Ben stared down at the screen a few moments more, then rolled his eyes and slumped down, letting the phone loosen from his fingers.

‘Who was it?’ asked Rook sleepily, nuzzling his nose into the crook of Ben’s neck.

‘Sunny,’ Ben answered blithely, ‘she wants to know how good you are in bed.’

It was worth the momentary discomfort to push those words out into the open when Rook immediately stiffened and pulled away.

‘I know I cannot forbid you from talking with her, but still...I find your newfound understanding with her a little unsettling. As well as her apparent fascination with our relationship.’

‘Relax,’ Ben told him, shuffling round as the sheets dragged back against his movement, pressing a light kiss to the bend in Rook’s brow as he did so. ‘I’m not gonna give her the play-by-play. I’ll just craft an obvious lie that she’ll accept at face value. Like, ‘he’s everything I dreamed of and more.’ Or ‘when he touches me, my heart soars and he’s real gentle and treats me like glass.’ She’ll eat that kinda stuff right up.’

Rook looked both horrified and amused by the way Ben was so easily sprouting these lines. ‘You are right about the ‘obvious lie’ part. I have never treated you as though you were an object made of glass.’

Liar, Ben thought fondly, as he felt Rook’s hands travel down beneath the sheets to curve lightly over his hips. They smoothed over the faint bruises there with a gentle roll of his thumbs.

‘But I have to admit, I would not mind being thought of as ‘everything you dreamed of, and more.’ Rook grinned and dragged Ben closer to him - but not as hard as he could have, the human noted. ‘And am I, Ben? Everything you dreamed of and more?’

Ben let himself smile. And then after a few moments, allowed himself to answer.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The cruise referenced by Ben here, is a little homage to the Omniverse IDW comics where they go on vacation, discover mermaids exist, save an underwater kingdom, and we, the readers, get a nice little commentary on how Ben does indeed feel a little isolated from the rest of the world. Oh yeah, and we see that Rook can be persuaded to wear actual clothes...over his Proto-Armour. Never change, Rook. Never change.
> 
> And hence ends the story, I've held off publishing the very, well, _end_ of because...I feel like I could do more with it. I've sketched out rough outlines for other ideas I've had for this whole scenario of Ben-is-a-Anodite-now, further on in this verse, but all of them seem to peter out. This one, at least, has a conclusion of sorts, using a Disney plot-point.
> 
> I also feel like I've left it open-ended enough to come back to if I want, one day, and play around with. But on the other hand, it can stand-alone, as well. My greatest fear is starting off a sequel and never getting round to finishing it. I've got at least three other chaptered stories featuring this paring that I may never get round to publishing because I can't think up an ending for them, and there's nothing lamer than dangling a story you can't finish in front of people.


End file.
